Innovation Anthology #53: Director of Information
Triticale is a cereal crop developed in the 19th century, the result of crossing wheat with rye.
And with a few more tweaks to its genome, triticale may find new life in the 21st century fueling Canada’s bio-economy.
That’s the hope of Dr. Andre Laroche, a molecular biologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge.
His research indicates triticale is a perfect platform for building new proteins and molecules. And it can be used for more products than just ethanol for biofuels.
DR. ANDRE LAROCHE: Some of the sugars are just amazing. And we see that they could become the building blocks for new molecules, new polymers in the future. Since the straw also forms really rigid fibres, there is also quite a bit of interest for different applications. Would it be for the production of panels, or production of nanofibres that could enter in the composite of the future?
According to Dr. Andre Laroche, triticale is a crop that uses water efficiently yet gives a high yield – characteristics important for the production of bio-molecules in a world facing climate change and water shortages.
Thanks today to Genome Alberta.
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY, I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
Jim Herbers,
Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, jherbers@ualberta.ca
Sponsor
Program Date: 2007-07-31