A pilot project to test new grain grading machinery has unexpectedly
become a vital commercial tool in selling this year’s poor quality
wheat crop.
The machinery allows for a quick and accurate assessment of what’s
known as the “falling number” of a sample of sprouted wheat.
That indicates the presence of alpha-amylase, an enzyme that can play
havoc with the bread-making quality of flour made from the damaged
wheat.
With most of this year’s crop grading 3 CWRS, buyers of Canadian wheat
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have expressed concerns about amylase levels.
But the new rapid visco-analyzer, or RVA, machine is enabling grain
handlers and shippers to identify and segregate wheat with high levels
of amylase.
It’s first identified at country elevators, then tracked through the
rail system until it arrives at export terminals, where it is binned
separately.
That allows the Canadian Wheat Board to assure nervous customers that
the damaged wheat won’t end up in export shipments.
“In combination with revised grain standards for visual sprouting,
along with this monitoring and segregation program, I would say we’ve
certainly been successful in meeting the concerns that customers have,”
said Graham Worden, the board’s senior manager of technical services.
A severely sprouted wheat crop two years ago had made many customers
“gun shy” about the potential for amylase problems when they heard
about this year’s crop quality, he said.
Visual identification of sprout damage provides a rough indication of
falling number levels, but it’s not precise enough to use for
guaranteeing export shipments.
The board is issuing tenders for wheat shipments based on falling
number specifications, and the RVA is being used by grain handling
companies to assist them in bidding on those shipments.
The tenders specify that payments for the wheat will be based on the
falling number equivalent as determined by the RVA.
Dave Hatcher, program manager with the Canadian Grain Commission, has
been involved in the introduction of the RVA into the Canadian system.
The machine is not specifically designed for testing amylase content,
but Hatcher developed a calibration system that relates the results of
the three-minute RVA test to falling number levels.
The original plan had been to implement a pilot project this year,
using the $27,000 machines on a limited basis to test the accuracy of
the technique and to see how it worked in an operational setting as
opposed to the laboratory.
The $1 million pilot project is being jointly funded by the grain
commission, the wheat board, four grain handling companies and the
federal government.
Hatcher said the need to use the system on a commercial basis this year
has made it more difficult to carry on with the original goals of the
pilot project.
“There is such a demand for information from the industry that we can’t
do the normal assessment,” he said. “But we’re working as quickly as we
can to meet the needs of the industry.”
