Performance Story
The purpose of this project was to develop a quick, low cost alternative to kernel visual distinguishability (KVD) for the CWRS class of wheat for use by the grain handling industry to increase the competitiveness of western Canadian wheat in global markets and enable value added opportunities for wheat producers.
The proposed project strategy was based on previous success demonstrated by NeoVentures Biotechnology Inc. in selecting aptamers (short single-stranded fragments of DNA) that when labelled with appropriate fluorescent markers will enable rapid determination of varietal composition of wheat.
This phase of the project has resulted in the advancement of innovative technology and new discoveries pertaining to wheat proteins and application of aptamers to identify the presence of varieties in CWRS wheat samples.
The initial platform failed to exhibit a sufficient level of robustness to enable commercialization and the project leaders were forced to redesign the entire approach. While the new approach needs to be developed to enable identification of all CWRS varieties, it has been demonstrated that it's feasible and will flag the presence of varieties in a sample of grain. This will enable decision making at a grain elevator in terms of flagging truckloads of grain that should be separated from others. The system will not, however, determine the amount of each variety. While this is seen as somewhat of a disadvantage, NeoVentures has succeeded in demonstrating that the revised approach is not only technically feasible but represents a significant improvement over the previous strategies in terms of avoidance of environmental influence, reduction in costs and improved simplicity of application.
This novel approach will enable the use of bar code readers to rapidly determine varietal identity which is expected to be less expensive and easier to use than initially proposed.
This project will benefit western Canadian wheat growers by increasing their competitiveness in international markets and creating value added opportunities.
NeoVentures plans to continue development and is anticipating limited commercial release of this technology for the fall of 2010.
