Two new lines of soft white spring wheat developed at Agriculture Canada’s research centre in Lethbridge, Alta., received support for registration earlier this year.
Breeder Sadash Sadasivaiah said SWS-241 out-yielded industry standard AC Reed by 18 percent in three years of registration testing, but matured three to four days later than check varieties.
“With SWS-241, end-use quality is more suitable for price-driven export markets,” he said.
SeCan is handling the multiplication and distribution of the new line and farmers should be able to seed it in 2003.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
The centre’s other new line, SWS-234, bettered AC Reed by five percent, but matures two to three days later.
Though not as high-yielding as SWS-241, it has improved end-use quality that is good for pastries and soup thickeners.
Haney Farms of Picture Butte is handling seed multiplication and distribution. Seed should be available to producers in 2003.
“Both new lines are resistant to soft white spring wheat’s main disease threats: stripe rust, powdery mildew and black point,” Sadasivaiah said.
“As well, both are resistant to lodging and shattering.”
SWS-241 and SWS-234 will be renamed after receiving registration status from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
More than 50,000 acres of soft white wheat were sown in 2000, mostly in southern Alberta’s irrigated areas.
Soft white wheat has lower protein than other classes of wheat and provides the flaky texture vital to the pastry industry. Soft white wheat is also used in Asian noodles, flatbreads, pizza dough and breakfast cereals.
Sadiviaiah said the centre’s soft white wheat program has traditionally focused on quality, but SWS-241 is the result of a broadened focus that includes improving yields.
“We now have two streams, one that focuses on traditional markets and one that targets emerging export markets. This way the market will decide which will prevail and which will give producers the largest margins.”
Funding from the Western Grains Research Foundation solidifies the program for the next five years.
