New DNA-based method to identify Canadian barley varieties

Barley is a major field crop in Canada, and it’s important to be able to differentiate between varieties to ensure they meet the quality needs and specifications of end users. Our Grain Research Laboratory team developed a new DNA-based identification method, which allows them to distinguish between 124 commonly grown barley varieties in Canada. While variety identification was already being done for barley, this new method modernizes the process.

Contamination of malting varieties with other varieties can negatively affect the malting process for brewers. For example, if a feed barley variety contaminates a malting variety, it may not have the same quality features and may cause issues when trying to meet malting specifications. Because of this, there is often a 95% variety purity requirement at delivery to meet end-use needs and specifications. Large quantities of barley are grown and delivered to grain companies in Canada, and an accurate variety identification method with high-throughput and low costs is important. High accuracy is also important for Canadian producers who often need to meet variety purity requirements at delivery.

To identify these Canadian barley varieties in an efficient way, our Grain Research Laboratory team developed a custom panel of 24 TaqMan assays used in a SmartChip system. The panel of TaqMan assays is used to detect single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are a form of genetic variation. The SmartChip system is a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system, which is a laboratory procedure widely used to detect and quantify genetic variations.

Multiple genotypes are common in most grain crops, and 45% of the barley varieties tested with the new method have more than one genotype profile. The number of genotypes that had to be distinguished using this method were far more than the varieties listed. In some cases, the team also developed new markers, which is important to distinguish new varieties that are developed or bred and brought into production in Canada. This method is also flexible for introducing markers to identify new varieties.

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Canada is a leader in grain quality assurance and has highly accurate and modern DNA-based testing methods for barley variety identification. This will help us ensure we’re continuing to meet purity requirements for end-use markets.

Full research article

Sung-Jong Lee, Maria Eckhardt, Mathieu Dusabenyagasani, Marta Izydorczyk, Tigst Demeke, Daniel Perry, Sean Walkowiak (2024) Identification of Canadian Barley Varieties in High-throughput SNP Genotyping, Canadian Journal of Plant Science: https://doi.org/10.1139/CJPS-2023-0187