2004 Wheat Research Results, Priorities for 2005

Accelerated breeding for FHB (scab) resistance, evaluating micronutrients and growth regulators to reduce lodging, and forecasting diseases (as well as ways to suppress them) are among the research projects funded by the Minnesota wheat checkoff in 2005.

The Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council manages the wheat checkoff in Minnesota. The Small Grains Research and Communications Committee, consisting of a cross-section of the state’s grain industry, advises the Council each year on investing checkoff funding on wheat research priorities and programs. 

Some of the research priorities and recommendations carry over from year-to-year, while others are new, based on trends in the marketplace and problems during the growing season.  In no particular order, the Small Grains Research and Communications Committee established a list of important research priorities for 2005:

Disease management and breeding for higher yielding wheat: Breeding wheat to be regionally adapted, high yielding and acceptable for milling and baking uses. Using conventional and molecular genetics techniques in breeding.

Varietal performance comparisons: Such as root rot, response to fungicide, quality and response to different wheat management systems such as conventional versus intensive management.

Excess water management: Practices or varieties that can help prevent or reduce the yield and quality losses caused by excess moisture.

Identification and development of specific end-use traits in wheat: Including educating growers on consumer trends and resulting opportunities they present for wheat.

Wheat fertility research: Emphasis on micronutrients and slow release forms of nitrogen for better wheat quantity and quality.

Precision Agriculture, Remote Sensing, Site Specific Practices and the use of Internet Technology: Focusing on either reducing costs of production or increasing yields.

Technology transfer: Communication of production information to Minnesota’s wheat producers in a timely and easily accessible way.

Other additional areas of research interest include residue management, winter wheat, weed control (with emphasis on split and reduced chemical rates, sprayer technology, and weed emergence predictions), forecasting/modeling decision aids (such as models to help growers decide whether in-season nitrogen applications would be beneficial) and genetically-enhanced varieties, including education that can help growers and customers understand how genetically enhanced varieties can be handled in the wheat marketing system.

With these priorities in mind, the Committee and Council seek research proposals from crop scientists in the region. Not all projects on the “wish list” can be funded, given that research funding depends much on year-to-year wheat acres and production. 

Research progress and results are disseminated to wheat growers in Minnesota and other states, including through Prairie Grains, a research reporting session that is open to the public and held during the annual Prairie Grains Conference (most recently held in Grand Forks, N.D. in December) and a wheat research review published annually.  In their reports, crop scientists are requested to explain how their research may economically benefit a typical wheat farming enterprise. 

The 2004 Wheat Research Review is available by contacting the Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council, 1-800-242-6118, or emailing mnwheat@gvtel.com .

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Profiling Wheat Kernel Proteins

The quality of wheat flours that bakers use is due in large part to the work of hundreds of different proteins in the wheat kernels from which the flour is milled.  USDA-ARS scientists in California are taking a closer look at these proteins to create even better wheat flours for tomorrow.

Crop scientists at the ARS Western Regional Research Center in Albany have discovered more about the biochemical chores carried out by some 200 metabolic proteins whose jobs within kernels range from storing carbohydrates to protecting the kernels against insects.

Similar research has been done at other labs to identify proteins and their functions in wheat, but the California researchers are probably the first to delve this deeply into the roles and changing ratios of lesser-known wheat-kernel proteins.

See the complete story in the USDA-ARS’s online magazine:  www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan05/wheat0105.htm