A $6.2-million multi-partner funding commitment will allow Brock University\u2019s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) to support the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Canadian Grapevine Certification Network (CGCN-RCCV) to fast-track the certification of grapevine planting material as virus-free.<\/p>\n
Under Genome Canada\u2019s Genomic\u00a0Applications Partnership Program (GAPP),\u00a0CLEan plAnt extractioN SEquencing Diagnostics (CLEANSED)<\/em>\u00a0is a jointly funded initiative between Brock, CFIA, CGCN-RCCV, University of Victoria, Universit\u00e9 de Sherbrooke, Genome Canada, Genome BC, Genome Quebec, Ontario Genomics, Agriculture and Agri Food Canada (AAFC), Compute Canada, Conseil des vins du Quebec and Illumina.<\/p>\n CLEANSED utilizes High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS) technology with improved sensitivity to simultaneously detect multiple viruses in a grapevine. This genomic-based solution would replace more than 30 tests currently being performed on grapevines to look for diseases. This one genomic test can speed up the release of virus-free grapevine material from three years to one year (or less), providing rapid access to valuable new varieties. CGCN-RCCV will use this genomic test for testing and monitoring domestically propagated vines, ensuring grape growers have faster and more affordable access to clean vines.<\/p>\n “This funding will allow grape growers to rapidly improve the health of their vineyards and boost the domestic capacity in the supply of much needed virus-free grapevine plant material in Canada,\u201d says CCOVI Senior Scientist Sudarsana Poojari, who is leading the academic team of scientists.<\/p>\n The end users of the research are CFIA and CGCN-RCCV, which will implement CLEANSED to ensure that Canadian grapevines start clean and stay clean.\u00a0CFIA ensures that grapevine imports, exports and new domestic grapevine varieties for commercialization in Canada are free of regulated\u00a0viruses\u00a0and\u00a0all\u00a0non-regulated\u00a0viruses\u00a0of economic concern, while CGCN\u00a0will approve and commercialize CLEANSED for testing grapevines in a national domestic clean plant program.<\/p>\n \u201cThe CFIA is pleased to co-lead this project that will implement genomic technologies in support of a leading-edge national \u2018clean plant\u2019 program and diagnostics at the Sidney Centre for Plant Health. The solid science of the project will help our grape growers to quickly access healthy plants of diverse new varieties, resulting in increased production. Such approaches will be able to facilitate adaptation of Canadian and world agriculture to climate change,\u201d says Jaspinder Komal, Vice-President, Science Branch, CFIA.<\/p>\n The research is a collaborative effort between academia, government, and industry to tackle grapevine virus disease management, which has been identified as the top priority for long-term sustainability of the $9-billion Canadian grape and wine industry.Grape growers currently lose an estimated $23 million per year due to grapevine virus infections. In order to both replace infected material and maintain routine vine replacement and modest expansion, growers currently need access to an estimated 6.7 million affordable, virus-free vines.<\/p>\n High cost and convoluted testing methods, however, are currently hindering the ability of growers to obtain those vines, says CGCN Vice Chair and grape grower Bill Schenck.<\/p>\n \u201cAs growers across the country continue to deal with viruses that effect crop quality and vine health, the timing could not be more perfect than now for this project,\u201d he says. \u201cThe industry needs to have a Canadian source of clean vines that have been tested for viruses, and a program that can show the vines are true to type.\u201d<\/p>\n He says this work will standardize and validate high throughput sequence (HTS) screening protocols, allowing it to be implemented into a clean grapevine program driven by the industry it benefits.<\/p>\n Mike Rott, Receptor Project Leader and CFIA Scientist, says reducing the time and cost of testing, while at the same time improving sensitivity and accuracy through CLEANSED, is \u201ccritical in a highly competitive international market.\u201d<\/p>\n Allowing growers to gain faster access to clean plant material, he adds, both advances the CFIA\u2019s import\/ export mandate and allows Canadian growers to develop a made-in-Canada solution<\/em> to a common goal.<\/p>\n \u201cBy working together, we are able to develop a complete, interlinked set of programs that ensures grapevines entering, propagated, sold, grown in Canada and exported, remain disease free.\u201d<\/p>\n CCOVI Director Debbie Inglis says this announcement is the culmination of three years of collaborative work to tackle this priority issue, including previously developed Memorandums of Understanding between CCOVI \u00a0and AAFC, CFIA and CGCN to support a clean plant program for grapevines in Canada.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re always looking for rapid, sensitive cost-efficient ways to prove that plant material is devoid from disease, and the application of this research is a milestone for Canada,\u201d she says. \u201cGrapevine is leading the way for the first official clean plant program in the country, where we can be assured that the plants we\u2019re propagating and putting into the ground are free from disease.\u201d<\/p>\n Brock Vice-President, Research Tim Kenyon says that \u201cCCOVI consistently brings together major stakeholders in the grape and wine sector to produce breakthrough policies, programs and services in the industry, generating major contributions to local and national economies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis significant grant from Genome Canada shows the confidence stakeholders place in CCOVI\u2019s leadership, research and innovation, one example being the leading-edge CLEANSED virus detection tool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A $6.2-million multi-partner funding commitment will allow Brock University\u2019s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) to support the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Canadian Grapevine Certification Network (CGCN-RCCV) to fast-track the certification of grapevine planting material as virus-free.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7484,7,3319,4052,55,41,5],"tags":[9627,61,9628,9629,5757,3746,591,7970,13284,5624],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68896,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68893\/revisions\/68896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}