AC Emerson available this fall | Growers expected to plant up to 200,000 acres of new seed
Farmers will have access to Canada’s first fusarium resistant wheat this fall.
AC Emerson is a winter wheat variety with an R rating for fusarium head blight resistance. It is the first commercial variety in any class with that level of resistance.
Canterra Seeds hopes it will prove to be a popular replacement for the outgoing winter wheat leader, CDC Falcon.
“We’re having a very large-scale launch,” said Brent Derkatch, director of operations and business development for Canterra.
“It will be one of the largest variety launches we’ve had in our company history.”
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He said growers will likely plant up to 200,000 acres of the variety in the fall, mostly in Manitoba where fusarium is most prevalent.
That would replace some of the acres seeded to CDC Falcon, which is being moved to the Canadian Western General Purpose class as of Aug. 1.
CDC Falcon has been the most popular winter wheat variety grown in Manitoba by a wide margin: growers planted 352,064 acres last year. The next most popular winter wheat was CDC Buteo at 26,517 acres.
Manitoba Crop Variety Evaluation Team data shows Emerson yielded one bushel per acre higher than Falcon and has 1.3 percent higher protein.
The variety has good milling characteristics and performed well in the field.
“Our seed producers noticed that the winter hardiness of Emerson was very strong this year versus some of the other up-and-coming varieties,” said Derkatch.
This is a good year to launch the product. Manitoba Agriculture has designated the province as an extreme risk area for fusarium
As well, winter wheat plantings are expected to be way up this fall because waterlogged eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoba are big winter wheat areas.
Bruce Burnett, CWB weather and crop specialist, estimates 3.5 to four million acres were lost to flooding in that region, half of which went unplanted. That land is a prime candidate for winter wheat.
“I think we’ll see the acreage pop up because we’ve seen that happen in the past years where we’ve had problems with flooding,” he said.
Winter wheat plantings shot up by 700,000 acres in the fall of 2011 after spring crops were drowned out.
Burnett anticipates a similar response this year.
“I think we’ll probably be getting close to the two million acre mark, which would be a record for Western Canada,” he said.
That would be double the acres planted last year.
It could be even higher than that if wheat prices improve.
Burnett, who has toured some of the wettest areas of the Prairies, said fields are starting to dry up. He thinks the acres that went unplanted will be in reasonable shape for seeding come fall.
Growers who faced a deluge this spring will probably want to minimize the amount of crop they have to plant next spring.
Burnett said it will be nice for farmers to have a fusarium resistant option. The disease can rob growers of both yield and quality.
“Fusarium is a significant downgrading factor in wheat,” he said.
Derkatch cautions growers that an R rating doesn’t mean immunity: they will still have to scout their fields for the disease. However, it’s a step forward in the fight against fusarium.
“Based on what we know today, we have confidence that the variety will hold up better relative to the other varieties in the marketplace,” he said.
