Like students facing their final exams, 50 varieties of grain, oilseeds and pulses will be put to the test this week in Saskatoon.
Those that pass could be showing up in farmers’ fields in a few years.
Those that fail will probably disappear or could be re-submitted to a less demanding class, such as malting barley going to feed or milling wheat going to general purpose.
The varieties up for consideration at this year’s Prairie Grain Development Committee (PGDC) annual meeting include 13 varieties of wheat, three of triticale, 20 pulses and special crops, two canola, three oats and nine barley.
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“It’s a good slate of potential new varieties and we’ll be taking a good hard look at them all,” said Rob Graf, an Agriculture Canada wheat breeder and chair of the PGDC’s wheat, rye and triticale committee.
Twenty-six varieties were put forward last year and six were rejected.
Graf declined to discuss the varieties in detail until they have been through the committee, but did say some are high yielding while others continue the recent trend toward midge tolerance and fusarium resistance.
The 13 wheat varieties include five Canada Western red spring, three CW general purpose, two CW amber durum, two CW red winter and one Canada prairie spring red.
Graf said two new milling quality red winter wheat varieties are up for discussion. No milling quality CWRW has been approved since 2001 because of the impact of kernel visual distinguishability, which has been eliminated.
“KVD was a huge hindrance on the winter wheat side,” Graf said.
“Now we’re starting to see some real advances.”
The two oilseed varieties include one flax and one mustard.
The 20 pulse and special crop varieties include seven peas, three lentils, four fababeans and six other beans.
Graf said the three triticale varieties reflect renewed interest in the crop as a result of the Canadian Triticale Biorefinery Initiative, a 10-year research and development program aimed at developing triticale as a dedicated industrial biorefining crop for Canada.
Mike Grenier, agronomist with the Canadian Wheat Board, said one disappointment is the lack of new CW hard white spring varieties on the agenda.
“We would like to see some new developments there,” he said, adding the board is encouraged by the number of new CWHWS varieties in their first or second year of testing.
All of the varieties up for discussion have made it through three years of co-operative field testing.
If they are supported for registration, breeders will begin increasing seed this spring. It will then be at least three years before limited quantities of certified seed become available.
The committee makes recommendations to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which has the final say on whether a new variety will be registered.
Graf said he can’t recall any instance in his 20 years on the wheat committee in which the CFIA has rejected a line recommended for registration.
The PGDC annual meeting is expected to attract 250 participants, including researchers, grain and processing industry officials and other observers.
A plenary session is also planned featuring speakers addressing issues related to food allergies.
