The work we do

The Crop Development Centres focuses on plant breeding and pathology, and deploys the latest scientific advances to improve the agronomic and end-use performances of spring wheat, durum, canaryseed, barley, oat, flax, field pea, lentil, chickpea, dry bean, fababean and soybean. 

Our plant breeders develop new plant varieties with superior traits and improved disease resistance, greater yields, and better flavour! Our varieties have had a seven-fold economic benefit to Saskatchewan and Western Canada and its agricultural producers.

Our new plant varieties are developed to meet grower’s needs and to thrive under Western Canadian growing seasons, soils, temperatures, production practices, pests and diseases. A new variety is released only when research proves that is has new and improved traits to offer to agricultural producers.

Crop development timeline

It can take 10-12 years to release a new variety to be grown on farmers’ fields. The CDC crop development programs combine conventional and state-of-theart technologies and processes to support crop development, including use of genomic, digital phenotyping and computational decision-support technologies.