Members of the Prairie Grain Development Committee could have a heavy agenda on their hands when they meet in Banff next month to discuss the merits of Western Canada’s newest publicly developed crop lines.
Plant breeders from Agriculture Canada’s wheat breeding programs have as many as 16 new wheat cultivars that could potentially be brought forward as candidates for commercial registration in 2012.
They include a new midge-tolerant red spring cultivar that has performance similar to another recently registered variety AC Vesper. They also include a new solid-stemmed durum line that could offer prairie durum growers improved protection against the wheat stem sawfly, and a new red winter wheat line that would qualify for select markets and could serve as a replacement for CDC Falcon in the eastern Prairies.
Read Also
Sask. ag group wants strychnine back
The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan has written to the federal government asking for emergency use of strychnine to control gophers
New cultivars that are supported for registration by the Prairie Grain Development Committee must be approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency before seed is multiplied and distributed to commercial grain growers.
That process normally takes three or four years, meaning it could be 2016 before certified seed for the new cultivars is available to prairie farmers.
David Gehl, head of Agriculture Canada’s Seed Increase Unit at Indian Head, Sask., spoke to members of the Saskatchewan’s Seed Growers Association recently and offered a brief glimpse at Agriculture Canada’s most promising new candidates.
Gehl said BW455 is a promising, midge-tolerant CWRS cultivar that has yield potential similar to McKenzie and Unity, good straw strength and a good disease package.
However, it is still unclear whether the new cultivar will be put forward for consideration because its performance is similar to the midge-tolerant AC Vesper.
Vesper was registered several years ago and is expected to be available to commercial grain growers in the spring of 2013.
The decision on whether to bring the new line forward for consideration will ultimately rest with the line’s developer, Stephen Fox.
“It does look good but whether it’s good enough … we will wait and see,” said Gehl.
Another midge-tolerant line from Winnipeg, PT459, is likely to be put forward.
W478, a select red winter wheat line developed in Lethbridge, has been identified as a potential replacement for CDC Falcon.
In pre-registration testing, it showed yield potential three percent higher than CDC Falcon, similar winter survival and a good disease package that includes resistance to common rusts.
Finding a replacement for Falcon has become an important issue to winter wheat growers, particularly those in southeastern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba.
Falcon performs well in those areas but the variety was slated to be dropped from the select classification because of concerns over protein levels and milling quality.
Other recently registered CWRW varieties, including Flourish, have already been identified as potential replacements for Falcon and are making their way through the seed multiplication process.
Flourish, also developed by the Agriculture Canada program in Lethbridge, is expected to be available to commercial growers as certified seed in the fall of 2013.
In durum, two new lines — DT813 and DT818 — have good potential and may be brought forward for consideration, Gehl said.
Both lines have conventional straw height and disease packages similar to Strongfield.
DT813 has slightly higher yield potential than check varieties. DT818 has slightly lower yield potential than the checks but has a solid stem for protection against sawfly damage.
Other Agriculture Canada lines that may be brought forward at the PGDC meetings include:
- BW927, BW930, BW931 and BW932, semi-dwarf CWRS lines that are similar to Carberry but offer yields that are zero to five percent higher than Carberry;
- HW021, a hard white spring or CWHWS line with yield potential similar to Infinity, a disease package better than Snowbird and improved quality relative to Snowstar;
- HY1312, a semi-dwarf CPSR variety with a five percent yield advantage over check varieties;
- SWS416, a soft white spring variety with improved fusarium reaction and yield potential slightly lower than AC Andrew, and;
- Four CWRS lines that have yield potential as good as or better than check varieties. The four lines — PT457, PT458, PT459 and PT460 — were all developed in Winnipeg. Three of the four lines are resistant to stripe rust. PT458 and PT460 are rated R for fusarium headblight and PT459 is a midge tolerant line.
“We may actually put forward all four of these because they all have a strong package,” Gehl said.
Agriculture Canada breeders also have promising barley, oat, triticale and pea lines that could be put forward for consideration next month.
Plant breeders at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre also have a list of potential candidates that includes a pair of new durum lines, DT561 and DT562, a hulless food barley HB10313, a crested wheatgrass variety S9240M, a low tannin fababean cultivar and three new lentil cultivars that offer significant yield advantages over current varieties.
In pre-registration testing, the extra small green lentil cultivar CDC 2861-15a showed a yield advantage of six to 20 percent over CDC Milestone, said CDC plant breeder Pierre Hucl.
Another CDC lentil line, a small red known as 3160-21, showed a yield advantage of 21 to 39 percent over check varieties.
Hucl said the CDC’s new durum lines, DT561 and DT562, went through an extra year of pre-registration testing because extremely wet growing conditions had a significant impact on seed quality in 2010.
“Last year, 2010 … was an abysmal year for wheat quality so there were no durum lines brought forward for registration a year ago and a number of them were put back into registration tests for a fourth year, Hucl said.
“These two lines are in that situation.”
During four years of testing, DT562 showed a six percent yield boost over Strongfield with similar protein.
DT561 showed protein levels similar to Strongfield but it matured three days earlier.
The CDC also has a number of potential spring wheat lines.
