Syngenta’s first foray into the wheat seed business is a herbicide tolerant variety with good resistance to fusarium head blight.
“Syngenta is just getting started with wheat in Western Canada. There will be many more varieties,” said Syngenta Canada president Jay Bradshaw.
WR859 CL is a nongenetically modified Clearfield tolerant red spring wheat. It will be available to growers in limited quantities in 2010 exclusively through Richardson International.
It is one of few wheat varieties offering growers in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan good protection against fusarium, a disease that has cost growers more than $1 billion over the last 30 years.
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Until now, Syngenta has marketed wheat varieties through AgriPro Coker, a wheat breeding company acquired in 2004 that produces more than 280,000 new experimental wheat lines a year.
Bradshaw said Syngenta intends to commercialize more of AgriPro’s varieties in Canada under the Syngenta brand.
“We’ve got to start putting more emphasis on the wheat crop.”
That is music to the ears of Kevin Bender, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
“We’re really encouraged,” he said.
He is pleased that Syngenta, Monsanto and Bayer CropScience have renewed their focus on wheat.
“I think they all realize there’s going to be a lot more people in the world in the next 30 to 40 years. We’ve got a lot more mouths to feed,” said Bender.
Syngenta hopes to soon introduce hybrid barley to Western Canada.
