March 18, 2011 – Fort Collins, Colo. – Experimental wheat lines submitted by Colorado State University (CSU) Wheat Breeder Scott Haley won the “Best in Class” award at the recent Wheat Quality Council (WQC) meeting in Kansas City. The WQC is an industry-wide organization that brings together all wheat interests from breeders and producers to millers, processors and bakers.
Forty-five public and private breeder-submitted experimental lines were entered for evaluation from the 2010 growing season. The tested entries were hard red spring, soft red winter, and hard red and white winter wheat experimental lines. The lines were quality tested by cooperating millers, bakers, university and USDA Wheat Quality labs, and the Wheat Marketing Center. The three CSU wheat lines that were submitted were from samples grown at the USDA-ARS Central Great Plains Research Station in Akron in 2010.
The CSU set consisted of two conventional hard red winter wheat lines and one two-gene Clearfield® line. These lines have been in statewide field testing since 2008 and producers attending Colorado Wheat Field Days in June were able to see them in CSU Dryland and Irrigated Variety Trials in 2010 and will be able to see them again in 2011. If released, the two-gene Clearfield® variety will be the first publicly-developed two-gene wheat released in the U.S. If released, the new varieties from CSU will be marketed by the Colorado Wheat Research Foundation with initial sale to seed growers in fall 2011 and certified seed first available to producers in fall 2012.
Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee President Dan Anderson of Haxtun said, “It is certainly an honor for Dr. Haley and the CSU wheat breeding program to receive this award from the millers and the bakers, the customers for our product. This award shows that Dr. Haley’s emphasis on quality results in wheat varieties that are well liked by bakers and millers as well as by the farmers who grow them.”
CSU Wheat Breeder Scott Haley was pleased with the award for the CSU experimental lines. “As we have our own comprehensive quality lab on the CSU campus, we were well aware of the quality characteristics of these experimental lines,” Haley said, “But we value and appreciate the validation that the WQC testing provides because the evaluators utilize a diversity of different test procedures in their evaluations.”
In addition to providing feedback to the submitting breeders, the evaluation also serves a vital function in keeping the industry up to date on new varieties that are nearing release and will soon be grown on a commercial scale.
The Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee (CWAC) provides funding for wheat research at CSU through the producer-approved assessment of two cents per bushel.
