EDMONTON – Plant breeders have made dramatic genetic advancements in the past few years, but with one glaring omission.
“Farmers haven’t experienced the benefit of the investments in plant breeding when it comes to wheat,” said Sean Gardner of Monsanto.
However, that is about to change. All of the major plant breeding companies have launched wheat breeding programs in the past two years, Gardner told a meeting held during FarmTech in Edmonton last month.
“It’s the largest crop grown globally, 550 million acres, but there has been little in the way of incentive to grow it, compared to say a corn or soybean,” he said.
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Dave Sippell of Syngenta said his company intends to “wake that sleeping beauty” with new higher yielding varieties that are disease resistant, more nutrient and water efficient and more profitable.
“That will create the incentive to grow it.”
Syngenta plans new hard red and white, soft white and durum wheat, as well as new barley lines.
Gardner said his company is focusing on production traits that will boost yields, reduce risk and lower costs for producers.
Wheat prices are expected to reach near record levels in 2011 and 2012, but he said that by itself won’t convince producers to grow enough to meet world demand.
“Corn, for instance, will still make many farmers in the U.S. more money per acre,” he said. “But we can take what we have learned in breeding corn and apply it to wheat.”
End user traits in new wheat varieties are important, but both companies said yield potential will be the biggest influence on what crops are planted.
Sippell said a wheat variety used specifically for pizza dough at Poppa John’s Pizza is an example of niche market products that bring premium prices but are limited in market size.
“Fusarium tolerance, with reduced mycotoxins, is something that would benefit the greatest numbers of producers.”
He said Syngenta is developing pesticides that will work with the new genetics.
Gardner said new genetics will be developed with conventional breeding and the latest in genomics tools.
He said the Canadian industry has been cool toward GM wheat varieties, but American grower groups are more supportive.
“The American growers have a far more complex elevator, transportation and marketing system and they are working hard to sort that out right now so they can segregate GM wheat,” he said. “I hope we can get co-operation from the Canadian Wheat Board on this.… I think (the CWB) is re-examining their position taken back in 2003”
He said the acceptance of GM traits in corn, soybeans and sugar beets indicate that markets for GM wheat will expand based on price.
There are marketing opportunities for both GM and non-GM wheat, he added.
Sippell said Canada should be the first country to make wheat breeding breakthroughs because of its global reputation for high quality milling wheat and as a top international exporter that “reaches markets in more that 70 countries.”
Neither company plans to deliver GM wheat varieties for another decade, but they do plan to introduce varieties that have benefitted from breeding technologies such as double haploid and genetic marker selection as early as 2014.
