Snowbird, Canada’s first hard white spring wheat variety, is generating positive feedback from key customers in the Asian market.
The Seberang Flour Mill in Malaysia, for example, has performed end-use quality tests on the variety and said it is a well-suited grade for the production of wonton noodles, soda crackers and white bread, the three major markets for flour in the region.
According to the mill, Australian white wheat still rates best for making alkaline noodles, steamed breads and soft dough biscuits, but Snowbird poses a growing threat to Australia’s dominance of wheat exports to the region.
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Over the past decade, Australia’s wheat exports to Malaysia have been around 650,000 tonnes, while Canada’s have typically been around 200,000 tonnes and the United States’ around 75,000 tonnes. Australia’s advantages are long-standing dominance in hard white spring wheat and close proximity.
“There’s still a lot of breeding work and market testing to be done to firmly establish this class, but it’s nice to see we’re at a point where we’re getting some encouraging signals from potential customers,” said wheat breeder Pierre Hucl of the Crop Development Centre in Saskatoon.
As a result, Canada and the U.S. have shifted wheat breeding more strongly into white-seeded wheat.
Though the roots of white wheat development are deep in Canada, including development of the Canada Prairie Spring White class, CWHW is a new white-seeded incarnation best suited as a potential “universal wheat” for Asian noodle, bread and biscuit production.
It is modelled on Canada Western Red Spring wheat but developed with white seed, which offers preferred colour and higher flour extract. CWHW has slightly lower protein than CWRS, which gives it greater end-use flexibility.
Research has been partially funded through the Western Grains Research Foundation wheat checkoff.
