LACOMBE, Alta. (Staff) – Growing winter wheat in the parkland areas of western Canada would be commonplace if researcher Don Salmon had anything to say about it.
Working out of the Alberta Centre for Barley Research at Lacombe, Alta., Salmon is promoting winter wheat and triticale in the central Alberta parklands. He has 20 years of research behind his proof that new winter cereal varieties will survive in colder areas partly because there is enough snow cover for protection. Some experiments are also being conducted in the Peace River district, Salmon said during a field day at the research centre.
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Twenty farmers in the Stettler area are growing these winter crops on 100 acres each, including five using conservation tillage.
Winter wheat is grown widely throughout southern Alberta and has a market among specialty bakers who use the flour for flat breads, oriental noodles, pizza dough and crackers. These customers want a very white flour from hard white wheats.
“They may be more marketable than our traditional red wheats,” said Salmon. But several questions have challenged researchers.
One of the first was figuring out when to plant the wheat for the least chance of winterkill. Researchers found the latter part of August or first part of September provided excellent survival rates.
Winter wheats and triticale tend to grow tall and are subject to lodging. Some shorter winter wheats and fall ryes are being developed with less straw and higher grain yields.
Salmon sees several advantages with fall-seeded crops, among them reduced soil erosion in the fall and retained soil moisture in the spring.
As an 11-month crop, winter cereals provide good competition for weeds in the spring and relieve the farmer of some harvest stress because the crops stretch out the season. Such crops will also work in areas that are seeded late due to a cold or excessively wet spring.
Salmon said the risk of frost is lessened with fall-seeded crops because the grain is harvested two to three weeks earlier than traditional spring seeded crops.
Forage is another possibility for fall-seeded crops, he added.
“Some of these newer winter cereals have the possibility for producing excellent forage, whether it’s in the form of grazing or for the production of an early silage,” said Salmon.
Winter triticale is also an option. Triticale is a cross between wheat and rye and works as forage or silage. It comes off as silage about 10 days after flowering, with a digestibility level of 75 percent. It can also be used as a late fall grazing tool after other perennial grasses have died.
