At the recent Prairie Grain Development Committee (PGDC) meetings in Winnipeg, Ken Jackle, chair of the Prairie Recommending Committee for Oilseeds (PRCO), shared insights on exciting developments in mustard and flax breeding.
Jackle, whose roots trace back to a farm in southwest Saskatchewan, has spent decades in plant breeding, starting in wheat before transitioning to flax. His experience at the Crop Development Centre (CDC), where he serves as a field research technician, has given him a front-row seat to the evolution of breeding programs that directly impact farmers.
One of the biggest stories this year? New mustard lines poised to deliver significant yield increases. This year, the release of two new mustard lines marked a significant milestone in the ongoing development of mustard crops in Canada, with a particular focus on increasing yield and quality. Led by Bifang Cheng at AAFC Saskatoon, the new mustard lines are the culmination of years of hard work and innovation.
“For Saskatchewan’s mustard growers—who currently supply around 70% of the world’s mustard—that’s huge. To keep our market edge, we need new high-yielding, high-quality varieties, and that’s exactly what’s coming.”
But mustard isn’t the only oilseed seeing innovation. Flax research is tackling long-standing challenges, including cadmium uptake, a key issue for edible flax markets. “We have a graduate student project working on understanding cadmium accumulation in flax,” Jackle explained. “The goal is to breed lower-cadmium lines to meet market demands.”
Another major flax initiative focuses on addressing the overlooked but persistent threat of pasmo disease. “It’s not well understood, but we see it, we recognize it, and now we’re working to identify resistance mechanisms,” he said.
And then there’s the future-forward approach of genomic selection. “We’re in the data accumulation stage,” Jackle noted. “If we can use genetic markers to pinpoint and stack beneficial traits—higher yield, early maturity, disease resistance—we can dramatically improve breeding efficiency. It’s every breeder’s dream to get all the best traits into a single line, and genome selection brings us closer to that reality.”
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