The ethanol and livestock industries need to ramp up their dialogue with wheat breeders about what they want from the new Canada Western General Purpose class.
“There’s been some discussion, but we certainly need to do more,” wheat breeder Rob Graf said after speaking to a winter cereal growers meeting in Saskatoon last week.
He said a number of questions need to be answered about the new class before new varieties can be developed.
It’s understood that the new class is intended to be a home for high yielding wheat, with high starch and lower protein.
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But Graf, who runs the winter wheat breeding program at Agriculture Canada’s Lethbridge station, said more information is needed.
For example, does the industry want hard or soft kernels?
Does it matter whether kernels are red or white or something else?
Should the kernels contain regular starch levels, or be partly or fully waxy?
The ethanol industry might favour fully waxy varieties, while the livestock industry wouldn’t.
“Some of that can be sorted out simply by putting a number of varieties out there and seeing what happens,” he said.
But there is also a need for some face-to-face discussion among breeders and producers of ethanol and livestock.
Graf added it might turn out that separate standards will have to be established for wheat for the ethanol and livestock sectors.
Graf was speaking to the annual meeting of the Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission.
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