Trying to Make Short Varieties That Yield

That’s the objective of WestBred wheat breeder Greg Fox

Trying to make short varieties that yield. That’s plant breeder Greg Fox’s short description of his role with Bozeman, Mont.-based WestBred, a company aimed at developing and distributing enhanced small grain varieties.

WestBred was formed as a joint venture between Western Plant Breeders Inc. and Goertzen Seed Research Inc. of Haven, Kan. The WestBred operation also has research bases in West Lafayette, Ind. and Yuma, Ariz.  The company’s seed variety portfolio includes durum wheat in the Southwest, feed barley and wheat in the Northwest, hard red and hard white winter wheat in the Central Plains, and soft red winter wheat in the eastern United States. It is best known for developing “desert” durum varieties, which remain a large part of its business.

The firm has had a presence in North Dakota since 1993. At that time, Fox and his wife, both plant breeders, had developed a technology to simplify producing plant generations using modest growth chambers. Western Plant Breeders bought the business, and they became employees of that company. The Fargo operation has evolved over the past decade, and Fox now has working partnerships with local seed firms.

In 1993, the focus was on wheat scab. Using the “speed breeding” technology, Fox developed the scab tolerant variety, Sharpshooter. Unfortunately, in wet years the variety proved susceptible to lodging. Interaction with growers told Fox that their overall philosophy was not necessarily of that on the farm. To a degree, lodging had become a larger issue that scab. The desire, especially in the Red River Valley and the Devils Lake Basin area, was for scab resistance along with no lodging.

In 2000 Fox identified the semi-dwarf variety Granite, which had good scab tolerance but not quite the resistance to leaf rust of the NDSU varieties. Under most conditions, it did not lodge. It also had the virtue of excellent test weight and protein level.

Fox came to believe that if variety selection had been more heavily based on test weight and protein the scab disaster might have been much less severe. “It’s hard not to look at yield,” he says, “but the first thing I look at is test weight. If it’s low, something is wrong.”

Granite’s test weight and protein were so good the variety leaped over everything else he was working on. And farmers agreed that Granite was something that could work in the area between the Red River and the Drift Prairie.

Granite, he points out, is a high input variety. Growers who had come to routinely apply fungicide to wheat wanted something with potential to yield well with a higher level of inputs. Granite was released on that basis.

Granite rarely won in university yield trials but always had the highest test weight and protein. “If you have that kind of potential, the grower can make it yield,” Fox says. Given a variety with a good base level of scab and disease resistance and low lodging, growers can take care of the rest, he says.

Granite was a variety with “legs,” capable of 160 bushels per acre with ideal inputs and moisture like varieties developed for California and Arizona. With increasing use of yield monitors at harvest, growers started to realize the potential.

Fox says Granite was an educational process that was part of a different philosophy both in the company and among farmers. More growers wanted a “big wheat” option that would stand up under all conditions and have the potential of 100 bushels per acre to go along with the excellent standard height varieties from university breeding programs.

He had to tell how to grow the variety, with customers provided with a package of management recommendations, including fertilization, fungicide use and a higher recommended seeding rate.

Granite proved to be competitive with other varieties, but the problem was that it drove out other company varieties until it was the only spring wheat being aggressively marketed. A new companion variety called Trooper is coming out for seed production this year. Fox says it has a better general disease package than Granite but about one percentage point lower protein, still better than many other semi-dwarf varieties. Trooper is recommended only in North Dakota and Minnesota with emphasis on the Red River Valley. Trooper is a better candidate for later planting than Granite, he says.

Fox is looking ahead to replacing the Granite type wheats. As good as varieties may be, it becomes necessary to replace them, he says.

From his vantage point of working both at Bozeman and in the Red River Valley, Fox sees the dramatic difference in disease stress. Crops in the Valley and other high moisture areas like the Devils Lake Basin are under a heavy disease load. Wheat plants in North Dakota and Minnesota are covered with fungus which is not seen at Bozeman and other western locations with lower humidity.

He is recommending early fungicide application because of the threat of stripe rust. Fox doesn’t think it will become an issue in the area, but it has been a disaster in California and has showed up in winter wheat in Kansas.

Another slower project Fox is working on is development of an ultra scab resistant variety—a quantum leap in scab protection.

White wheat is also coming to this area, he says. West Bred will be introducing white varieties adapted to the area in about two years, then will try to have a new white variety every year or two.

In the durum area, Fox has worked with Dakota Growers Pasta for the past eight years. Dakota Growers is soon releasing its own exclusive durum variety called Primo D ‘Oro. Rugby is an excellent durum variety but has some problem with protein strength. He describes the new variety as a strong gluten strength version of Rugby. The Primo variety is aimed at the Missouri Coteau region, where much durum production is moving. An experimental variety is also being developed for the traditional “Durum Triangle” area. Called “706,” it has good scab tolerance and the high yield potential of the desert durums.

Fox says he and WestBred, like all plant breeders, are constantly looking for new things. He wants his program to fit in with the NDSU program to make use of good plant material. A good thing about small grain breeding, he says, is that when improved germplasm is identified, all of the “brotherhood” of breeders can develop better varieties.