USask fellowship breeds sustainability

Caballero has joined the College of Agriculture and Bioresources (AgBio) as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Plant Sciences. Caballero recently completed his doctoral program in plant breeding at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture located in Córdoba, Spain.

“Thanks to international collaborations in pulse crop breeding between research groups from Canada and Spain, I met Dr. Kirstin Bett (PhD),” said Caballero. “I learned about this opportunity from her.”  

Through the Misiwêskamik fellowship, Caballero is working on a project funded by Genome Canada called ACTIVATE, led by Dr. Kirstin Bett and Dr. Curtis Pozniak (PhD). The goal of the project is to reduce synthetic fertilizer use and greenhouse gas emissions by developing more resilient crop varieties.  

“Nitrogen is an essential element that plants need for growth, but it’s availability in soil is limited so nitrogen fertilization is required to ensure a good yield for most crops. The production of these fertilizers is carrying a concern in current agriculture because it is both polluting and expensive. As a result, researchers are seeking more environmentally friendly alternatives to enhance soil nitrogen content for crop cultivation.”

As a postdoctoral fellow on Bett’s team, Caballero’s role focuses on exploring whether there is a genotypic effect in lentils that enhances wheat yield in subsequent seasons, allowing the selection of improved varieties adapted for crop rotation.

Once they’ve determined the most efficient traits in lentils to participate in the lentil-wheat rotation, Caballero and the ACTIVATE team will explore the genetic mechanisms underlying these traits, enabling its introgression into elite cultivars.  

“The idea is to reduce the nitrogen fertilization through crop rotation trials,” said Caballero. “This year we will plant lentils, and next year we will plant wheat, and we’ll see if there is a correlation between the lentil-wheat combinations’ genotypes that enhance the quality of the grain.”

Caballero’s research with the ACTIVATE project contributes to progress towards Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and helps Canadian producers produce greater yields with less inputs. The project falls under USask’s Signature Areas of Research, as it contributes to efforts to strengthen Saskatchewan’s ability to sustainably grow food to feed the world’s growing population.

“Learning more about the nitrogen cycle is so important for the environment,” said Caballero. “If we can reduce synthetic nitrogen inputs, we improve our ability to reduce greenhouse emissions.”