b"The Plant Breeding Toolbox of the FutureModern plant breeders have access to a wealth of tools that make their work easier. Ashley RobinsonON THE WEBLONG GONE AREthe days of mashing plants togetherWHERE and hoping for the best. Plant breeders now have access to numerous tools which make their breeding work more preciseGenomics can get complicated. Cant get enough of learning about it? Make sure to watch the full episode at youtube.com/watch?v=s5Dr2y7I50o and effective.Seed SpeaksTake molecular markers as an example. Molecular markers are a tool or a group of plant breeding methods that enable breeders to examine the genome and understand the intricacies of it, Beni Kaufman, director of business development at Agriplex Genomics, explains on a recent episode of Seed Speaks. From there plant breeders can then identify the genomes DNA sequence variation to use as the base for various breeding schemes. It is used to understand the genetic foundationthe blue-print if you will. It also is being used to monitor the changes that you are introducing over time, he says.For Ron Knox, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri- Tom Warkentin is aRon Knox is aBeni Kaufman serves Food Canada in Swift Current, Sask, Canada, molecular markerspulse breeder at theresearch scientistas director of business have made his plant breeding work immensely easier.University ofwith Agriculture anddevelopment at Saskatchewan. Agri-Food Canada inAgriplex Genomics.With the modern technologies and the number of mark- Swift Current, Sask.ers that we have access to now, for somebody that's involved in molecular genetics, it's a little akin to a child in a candy store. It's a wonderful thing, Knox explains. He adds the wealth of informa- In the type of work that I've been involved with, there's a level tion can be overwhelming at times though.of kind of chance and randomness to the work, Knox explains. One discovery that has pushed molecular marker technol- Now, with the reference genome, all the sequences are laid out ogy and plant breeding forward is that of genome sequences.in a way every base in the DNA is numbered and organized.Groups of scientists around the world have been ableFor Kaufman, reference genomes make all the difference in to sequence the genomes ofhis work at Agriplex Genomics. He explains that there cant be crops such as peas andmolecular marker data points without the right primers for PCR wheat creating refer- or sequencing reactions that come from reference genomes.ence genomes. TheseThe reference genome gives this, if you will, topographical genomes allow plantcontext to the markers. That is the tool that enables understand-breeders to be moreing linkage, mapping and the physical cloning of sequences or efficient in their plantgenes and so forth, Kaufman adds.breeding work. Genomics isnt the only promising area of plant breeding. Knox thinks there are lots of opportunities for phenomics moving forward. Phenomics and high throughput phenotyping, I think those provide opportunities to look at our plants in more detail and in terms of the phenomicslooking at traits as they progress over time. So, it provides an additional dimension to our understand-ing, he explains.Tom Warkentin, pulse breeder at the University of Saskatchewan, also sees a lot of possibilities for gene editing. He adds gene editing can be a very powerful tool if you know the gene of interest and its sequence. Warkentin cautions though that not all jurisdictions globally are welcoming of gene editing currently.SW46/ SEEDWORLD.COMINTERNATIONAL EDITION 2023"