TAMPA, Fla. – Syngenta is relying on its experience as owner of the world’s only hybrid barley program to develop a North American hybrid wheat program.
Six months ago, the company established a hybrid wheat breeding unit that will be operated by AgriPro, a wheat and barley breeding company acquired by Syngenta in 2004.
Eight people have been hired to staff the new unit, and Syngenta is still filling remaining job openings.
“We’ve had a hybrid barley on the market for three years in Europe,” Paul Morano, U.S. national marketing manager for Syngenta Seeds Inc., said during an interview at Syngenta’s trade show booth at the 2011 Commodity Classic conference.
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The research team is in the beginning stages of using genetic markers to identify suitable male and female parents that will create hybrid wheat plants. It has only field tested potential parent lines.
“We do not have a hybrid made yet,” said Morano.
The wheat industry has lagged behind other major crops in the development of hybrids.
Morano said that’s partly because wheat has a different gene structure than other crops and partly because it traditionally hasn’t been a high-value crop.
New crop breeding technology and rising prices are making wheat a more attractive investment for seed companies.
Morano believes the first hybrids will be commercialized in eight to 10 years.
“Unfortunately it takes a long time to get all this perfected,” he said.
The hybrids are expected to boost yields by eight to 12 percent over today’s varieties, but yield stability is the ultimate goal.
Syngenta is attempting to end the wild fluctuations that can occur with a farmer producing a 100 bushel per acre crop one year and a 10 bu. per acre crop the next.
“We want to take the valleys out,” said Morano. “What we’re after is a more consistent product.”
Consistent yields will be achieved by incorporating beneficial agronomic traits such as disease resistance and nitrogen and water use efficiency.
They will be naturally occurring traits identified through genetic marker technology.
Syngenta is leery of using genetic modification to introduce the traits because the company is not convinced the wheat industry has fully embraced the technology.
Morano said Limagrain has done work on hybrid wheat in Europe and is establishing a program in the United States.
He’s also heard through the grapevine that Monsanto is once again exploring a hybrid wheat project.
He believes Syngenta’s familiarity with hybrid barley will give the company a head start.
The company hopes to field test hybrid lines by 2015 and commercialize them by 2019 or 2020.
He said it would be possible to get it done earlier, but Syngenta wants to avoid the mistakes that have been made in the past by rushing hybrids to market.
The plan is to release new hybrid lines simultaneously in Canada and the U.S., but Canadian growers could be the first to benefit because the breeding process for spring wheat is shorter than winter wheat.
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