MINTO, Man. – Potentially good news is growing in prairie test plots and last week farmers got a chance to see for themselves.
The Western Feed Grain Development Co-op (WFGD) used a tour of the Ag-Quest research station near Minto to show off its feed wheat development plots and the extensive yield trials that are underway for a number of promising, high-yielding, fusarium-resistant cultivars.
The co-op is propagating 11 of the most promising varieties on 90 acres in Taber, Alta, and Minto. Coming up behind them are 10,000 other lines now being screened.
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“Technically, I think that we are doing quite well,” said WFGD director David Rourke.
“We can make a decision this summer about which ones go ahead.”
Evidence of an unusually soggy growing season could be seen in the brown rust colouring the surrounding fields. Manitoba Agriculture’s crop extensions specialists have rated the risk of fusarium head blight infection in recent weeks as very high to extreme in much of the province.
“If you grow hard red spring and you make No. 1, that’s one scenario. If you grow it and you get feed, that’s not a good scenario,” Rourke said.
“With something like this, if you can get the fusarium out of it, that’s of course the best thing. But even if it is downgraded, it won’t affect the price.”
Project plant breeder Vinesh Verma said that despite limited resources, the co-op has a competitive edge in its efforts to develop a superior cultivar because it is looking for improved performance within a narrow category.
“We can be ahead of them because we are actually targeting a feed wheat,” he said.
“They breed for a very wide range of purposes, such as bread wheat. But our purpose is fairly straight forward: fusarium resistance and high yield.”
The first members to sign on with the co-op will be the first to get their hands on the seed.
After that, they can save the seed for their own use. However, because the sale of non-registered varieties is illegal, markets would be restricted to fellow co-op members or for use as livestock feed or ethanol.
Some of the roughly 800 high-yielding, eighth generation cultivars donated to the co-op from Agriculture Canada’s breeding program are being screened for fusarium resistance. The process involves spraying the growing plants with fungal innoculum and then selecting the ones that show the most resistance.
Rourke said that along with fees paid by the co-op’s 90 members, the co-op has received funding support from the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council, Landmark Feeds, Manitoba Pork and government agencies such as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
“The most surprising thing is that we don’t have 500 members. I guess it takes some time for word of mouth to get around,” he said.
More members are needed to sustain the co-op’s efforts but Rourke said interest in the co-op is bound to grow once it is able to start bringing varieties to the market and distribute seed.
With the price spread between top grade wheat and feed narrowing, Rourke expected that more farmers would start seeing the economic advantage of growing a dedicated feed wheat capable of producing up to 80 bushels per acre, compared to 50 bu. for hard red spring wheat.
“There’s really no risk to the feed grain side, whereas there is a huge risk to the HRS side. You could be a couple of hundred dollars an acre ahead in the extreme case,” Rourke said.
An alternative to the practice of growing feed wheat by accident is sorely needed, he added, because farmers have lost money for the past 12 years out of 15 growing hard red spring wheat.
