CANTERRA SEEDS has established itself as a trailblazer in the seed breeding world by forging a partnership with Limagrain Cereals Research Canada (LCRC) in the pursuit of innovative plant breeding in Canada.

In 2015, CANTERRA SEEDS partnered with France’s Limagrain to form LCRC. This combined venture focuses on breeding new wheat varieties that have the traits and disease resistance that Western Canadian farmers need now. LCRC’s mission is to bring cutting-edge varieties to market in an expedited timeline.

“Collectively, we need to recognize that variety development and the improvement of plant genetics are paramount for the future prosperity of Canadian agriculture,” says Brent Derkatch, CANTERRA SEEDS CEO.

As a founding partner, CANTERRA SEEDS not only provides market input, but also has preferred access to the innovative varieties LCRC develops. With these varieties, CANTERRA SEEDS customers can be confident that they are planting seeds of the highest quality and highest yielding that will stand strong against a wide host of threats.

Located in Saskatoon, LCRC works to bring together germplasm, modern technology, innovative plant breeding and uses CANTERRA SEEDS' expertise and market knowledge to deliver the best possible seed varieties to Western Canadian growers. With access to their parent company, Limagrain, LCRC uses their expansive library of genes and traits from around the world to develop high-yielding varieties with disease tolerance and specific traits to meet growers’ needs.

When breeding new seed varieties, the initial cross rapidly progresses through multiple generations each year and is eventually tested in various field trials. These trials evaluate agronomic traits, including yield, standability and maturity. LCRC also has a fully functional disease nursery where this material is screened to test resistance to key diseases that impact farmers, such as fusarium head blight, leaf rust, stem rust and stripe rust among other Priority 1 diseases in Western Canada.

2024 marks a remarkable milestone for LCRC with the recent success of having seven new spring wheat varieties supported for registration, with some of them carrying special traits such as midge tolerance and solid stem that confers resistance to the wheat sawfly, both very important to farmers in Western Canada.

Since the partnership began, LCRC has developed four wheat varieties, CS Daybreak, CS Accelerate, CS Recoil and LAR18-04850 (name pending), which are all high-yielding varieties with excellent disease resistance and physical quality. CANTERRRA SEEDS and LCRC will continue to launch varieties designed for Western Canadian growers as they are ready for market release.