WINNIPEG – A wheat variety with improved resistance to fusarium head
blight might be available to western Canadian growers within two years.
Alsen, a semi-dwarf variety developed at North Dakota State University,
is already popular among growers in that state.
Canterra Seeds Ltd. of Winnipeg is now working to bring the crop to the
Canadian Prairies, where fusarium has been a problem for producers,
especially in Manitoba.
Last week, the Prairie Registration Recommending Committee for Grain
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supported a one-year interim registration of Alsen.
If the Canadian Food Inspection Agency grants the interim registration,
it would allow Canterra Seeds to import Alsen from the United States to
begin seed production.
Canterra president and chief executive officer Dave Sippell said
Alsen’s greatest appeal is its resistance to fusarium, but it also has
several other good traits for prairie producers.
Although the variety has improved fusarium resistance, it does not have
immunity to the disease.
Alsen could win full registration in 2003 but Sippell said it will more
likely be fully registered and commercially available the following
year.
“It does depend on variety registration.”
Rob Graf chairs the recommending committee’s wheat-rye-triticale
subcommittee, which supported the interim registration of Alsen.
While the variety shows promise, Graf said two more years of field
trials are needed.
And while Alsen looks as though it might fit into the Canadian Western
Red Spring wheat class, that is not yet definite.
“We have to make sure we don’t jeopardize the CWRS class by allowing
something in that doesn’t fit.”
At the same time, Graf has seen promising results from the co-op trials
that were done on the crop last year.
“It looks pretty good for fusarium resistance and it’s got a nice
mixture of other traits.”
The fusarium resistance in Alsen was derived from a Chinese wheat
variety. The resistance trait was transferred using conventional plant
breeding techniques.
There are estimates that as many as 465,000 acres were planted to Alsen
in North Dakota last year. Some people are speculating that North
Dakota growers could plant more than a million acres of Alsen this
coming spring.
“I think very likely it could become the No. 1 wheat variety this
year,” said Dale Williams, director of the NDSU’s foundation seed
stocks project.
Fusarium head blight can lower the quality and yield of wheat and
barley crops.
Fusarium can make barley unsuitable for malting. Toxins caused by the
disease also can render barley and wheat unsuited for livestock feed.
