Canterra Seeds chief executive officer Dave Sippell announced last week that his company is registering three new general purpose spring wheat varieties designed for ethanol, the first in Canada to do so.
In field trials across the three prairie provinces, the new varieties have consistently yielded 10 to 15 percent higher than performance check varieties such as Barrie, Superb and Crystal, according to Sippell.
“We’re seeing consistently higher performance in 70 to 80 percent of replicated trials, in multiple locations right across the three provinces,” he said.
Sippell noted that this low protein, high yield wheat is not destined for milling. The three have been developed specifically for the ethanol industry.
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“I’m a bit leery about releasing all the numbers until we have the results from the co-op trials….We’re just touching the yield range achieved by winter wheat. I’d say we’re almost similar to winter wheat yields,” Sippell said.
The varieties are in their first year of the co-op trials.
The three varieties are Shiraz, Chablis and Ashby. He said Shiraz is the earliest maturing variety, but doesn’t quite have the yield potential of the other two. Shiraz is intended for Alberta and for farmers who want early maturity genetics.
Chablis and Ashby are later maturing, but have better yield potential. He said each of the three varieties have distinguishing traits that suit them to different areas. Canterra started working with the varieties in 2002.
“Five years ago, there was no talk about special varieties for ethanol. But at the time, Canterra felt there was going to be a future need for specific feed wheat varieties. Not a milling wheat that fell short of grade, but a true high quality wheat developed just to be a feed wheat.
“At that point in time, there was no general purpose class. We tested a lot of varieties, anticipating the need would eventually overwhelm the system. And sure enough, here we are in 2007 and a general purpose class is forming and ethanol varieties are coming along at the same time.”
Sippell said the traits required for a feed wheat are extremely high yield along with relatively low protein. Those are the same traits demanded by the ethanol market.
“So we started fine tuning the germplasm we were developing for feed wheat and we found we had the right products for ethanol.”
Protein levels for the three varieties generally average 10 percent, with the range running from nine to 11. He said low protein and high yield mean the management practices applied to conventional spring wheat are not applicable to these new varieties.
“We’re developing a management package that’s appropriate for this wheat. Most growers want to manage wheat to maximize protein, but our aim is to minimize protein. So we’ll have an agronomic fertilizer package designed to give growers maximum yield.”
The first year co-op yield results will be available this fall. Canterra will run full-scale ethanol testing on each of the three. The varieties will be eligible for registration in February 2009.
“Double digit yield improvements are unprecedented in the recent history of agriculture,” Sippell said.
“These revolutionary new varieties will enable farmers in Western Canada to produce higher yielding wheat crops that will help meet the increasing national demand for ethanol.”
The cost to a Canadian consumer for biofuel is relatively high because productivity of plants is not as good as other areas in the world.
Canterra Seeds is owned by approximately 170 western Canadian shareholders and is committed to developing genetically superior varieties of canola, cereals, pulses and soybeans.
For more information, contact Dave Sippell at 204-988-9752, or visit www.canterra.com.
