Wheat Research Archives - U.S. Wheat Associates

Soft White, USDA, Wheat Production and Harvest, Wheat Quality, Wheat Research

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Helps Break Ground on New Agricultural Research Service Facility

Federal officials including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack joined Washington state lawmakers and university leaders in early August for the groundbreaking of a new U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Plant Sciences Building on the Washington State University (WSU) campus in Pullman.

ARS is USDA’s “in-house research agency” focused on delivering scientific solutions to national and global agricultural challenges. ARS conducts wheat quality research through four regional Wheat Quality Laboratories (WQLs) focused on wheat types commonly grown in its region, including the Western Wheat Quality Laboratory also located at WSU. U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) has strong partnerships with each WQL as well as universities like WSU.

The new building at WSU is planned for opening in 2025. The WSU Plant Pathology, Crop and Soil Sciences, and Horticulture departments will inhabit the new building alongside federal scientists and four ARS research units: Wheat Health, Genetics and Quality; Grain Legume Genetics and Physiology; Northwest Sustainable Agroecosystems; and Plant Germplasm Introduction and Testing.

At the ground-breaking ceremony, more than 150 guests listened as speakers discussed the 20-year path to securing support for this new facility.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack at a podium with the USDA seal addressing participants in a ground breaking ceremony for a new ARS Plant Sciences Building at Washington State University (WSU).

U. S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. WSU Photo.

Secretary Vilsack asked attendees to think ahead to a future when the facility is completed, bustling with students, faculty, and researchers looking to solve the problems facing farmers in Washington and far beyond.

“There’s an effort to try to make sure that we understand how to deal with a particular disease that is impacting wheat production. And imagine the spark, the passion, the energy, the excitement that occurs when the solution is discovered. That’s what this facility is about, that moment of discovery,” he said.

Vilsack noted the new facility will not only be a place for discovery but also a resource that farmers both local and far afield of the Palouse will benefit from in the form of new techniques and greater insight into the vital work they do.

“To the extent that we have a university and a government research entity in partnership, ensuring that farmer, that rancher, that grower, that producer, can continue to be productive is an enormous opportunity for this country, and each one of us should be thankful at this groundbreaking for the science that’ll take place that’ll help these farmers, ranchers, and producers continue to productive,” Vilsack said.

Elizabeth Chilton, the inaugural chancellor of the WSU Pullman campus, noted that the groundbreaking represented much more than the beginning of a new research facility.

“It is evidence of the incredible partnership that WSU celebrates with USDA and our local, state, and federal legislators, commissioners, and communities,” Chilton said. “The groundbreaking research that this facility will support will literally change lives. This building will support faculty members, students, and researchers partnering together to create better crops and more sustainable farming practices so that we’re able to better feed our planet.”

Guests and dignitaries attending a ground breaking ceremony at Washington State University (WSU) for a new ARS Plant Sciences Building.

Washington Grain Commission Vice President Mary Palmer Sullivan (second from right) was among dignitaries and guests at the USDA-ARS Plant Sciences Building Groundbreaking ceremony on the campus of Washington State University Aug. 1, 2023. WSU Photo.

In addition to representatives from the federal government and Washington state agriculture groups (including Washington Grain Commission Vice President Mary Palmer Sullivan), WSU Board of Regents Chair Lisa Schauer and Regent Brent Blankenship, a Washington state wheat farmer and Past President of the National Association of Wheat Growers, also attended the events.

This article includes excerpts and photographs from an article in “WSU Insider” by RJ Wolcott. Read more here.

September 8, 2023/by Steve Mercer

Grain Science, India, Wheat Research, World Trade Organization (WTO)

USW Explores Opportunities to Collaborate with Australia on Policy Initiatives

USW Director of Trade Policy Peter Laudeman (left) chats with NAWG Vice President Of Policy And Communications Jake Westlin during the recent NAFB "Washington Watch" event in the nation's capital. Laudeman is currently in Australia to engage grain industry stakeholders in that country and explore ongoing global issues involving trade, plant breeding technologies and World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments.

USW Director of Trade Policy Peter Laudeman (left) chats with NAWG Vice President of Policy and Communications Jake Westlin during the recent “Washington Watch” event in the nation’s capital. Laudeman is currently in Australia to engage grain industry stakeholders in that country and explore ongoing global issues involving trade, plant breeding technologies and World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments.

U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) Director of Trade Policy Peter Laudeman is in Australia this week to engage grain industry stakeholders in that country and explore ongoing global issues involving trade, plant breeding technologies and World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments.

While a major competitor for U.S. wheat, Australia presents many opportunities for collaboration on policy initiatives that mutually impact both U.S. and Australian producers.

Laudeman will interact with researchers, government regulators, producer organizations, and private sector plant breeding and grain handling companies. His discussions will primarily be focused on the regulatory environment guiding plant breeding technologies, including transgenic and gene edited wheat. Both the U.S. and Australia regulators are reviewing applications to deregulate HB4 wheat produced by Argentinian company Bioceres.

HB4 wheat, a drought-tolerant transgenic wheat, received approval for commercialization and cultivation from Brazil in early March. Brazil joined Argentina, which granted commercialization approval to the genetically modified (GM) wheat in 2022. HB4 wheat is also approved for food and feed use in the U.S., Australia, Colombia, New Zealand, South Africa, Nigeria and Indonesia.

Growing global demand for wheat combined with persistent drought conditions that hamper production is leading the push for greater acceptance of new plant breeding technologies. Bioceres said HB4 drought-tolerance technology has been shown to increase wheat yields by an average of 20% in water-limited conditions.

USW and the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) are guided by jointly approved “Wheat Industry Principles for Biotechnology Commercialization,” which lay out specific steps expected from plant breeding companies if they wish to commercialize transgenic wheat in the U.S.

India’s oversubsidization of wheat and rice is another topic Laudeman will visit while in Australia, which has been a partner with the U.S. in holding other trading partners accountable to their WTO commitments. Australia recently joined WTO counternotification filed by the U.S. against India.

April 27, 2023/by Ralph Loos

Hybrid Wheat, Plant Breeding Innovation, Wheat Quality, Wheat Research

USW Welcomes Syngenta’s Hybrid Wheat Commitment

U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) is encouraged that technology company Syngenta expects to have commercial-scale hard red spring (HRS) and hard red winter (HRW) hybrid wheat seed available for U.S. farmers within the next three years.

Hybrid wheat’s primary value is demonstrated in a productive yield increase. This is needed by farmers around the world to offset the currently limited profitability of growing single-line wheat varieties. It is also needed to continue meeting record-setting use of wheat by a growing global population.

Jon Rich, head of hybrid wheat operations at Syngenta, recently told Successful Farming magazine that hybrid wheat should increase yields by 10% to 12% over current varieties. He said there is also the potential for more stable production across a variety of growing conditions. Hybridization also allows breeders to “stack” native and non-GM traits into wheat seed more precisely and efficiently than other breeding methods.

In addition to disease and insect resistance, and functional quality improvement, Rich said “we’re looking at sustainability traits, such as nitrogen use efficiency and water use efficiency,” something that could be very valuable in the future.

Spring Wheat Hybrids First

USW member state commissions in the norther plains have confirmed that several farmers worked with Syngenta to plant hybrid HRS wheat in 2022. Additional hybrid “proof of performance” testing will continue this year on an estimated 1,000 acres according to the company’s head of North American cereals, Paul Morano. He told Successful Farming he expects two hybrid HRS lines will be available for a full launch in 2025.

Morano said similar testing with HRW hybrid lines will take place with the 2023/24 and 2024/25 crops with a full commercial launch expected in 2026 in two Syngenta AgriPro^® hybrid lines.

Aerial photos of a wheat production research facility with fields, buildings and people at Junction City, Kansas, operated by Syngenta.

Syngenta’s hybrid development work in North America is coordinated by the Syngenta Wheat Research Center of Excellence in Junction City, Kan. Photo courtesy of Syngenta and Lance Visser.

Challenging Research

There is no doubt that hybrid wheat development has had its challenges. With a complex plant like wheat with three whole genomes in each cell and often six copies of each gene, that process is quite complex. The work requires many years and collaboration with a wide range of scientific disciplines, including wheat quality specialists who test the wheat for grade and functional milling, baking, and processing standards.

In 2018, USW was encouraged by hybrid research by Bayer Crop Science that was later transferred to BASF. Unfortunately, on March 1, 2023, BASF announced it was abandoning its North American hybrid wheat research, and the scientists who were conducting the work.

While hybrid wheat will have to prove itself in widespread, commercial use, it is good news for farmers and their customers that Syngenta is making a proper start.

“As we start to learn about this technology – and what else it can deliver to the farmer above and beyond yield, and how can we leverage the other inputs they put onto their crop – that’s a really big deal,” Rich said.

Photo at top of this page courtesy of Syngenta

March 28, 2023/by Steve Mercer

Plant Breeding Innovation, Sustainability, Wheat Quality, Wheat Research

Biodiversity and Productivity Has Grown in Modern U.S. Wheat Varieties

Reprinted with Permission from the University of Minnesota.

Agriculture is seen as both a key cause of the global biodiversity crisis and a principal means of addressing it. Though some advocates are calling for farmers to return to heirloom varieties of crops as a way for the agriculture industry to address the growing challenges posed by climate change, new research from the University of Minnesota suggests that the solution lies primarily in modern scientifically-bred crop varieties, which have led to an increase in biodiverse cropping practices and significantly higher wheat yields in the U.S.

In a paper recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University’s GEMS Informatics Center, Department of Applied Economics, and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute assembled area data and the associated genetic pedigrees for the 1,353 commercial wheat varieties that made up most of the U.S. crop from 1919 to 2019. They factored in phylogenetic breadth when estimating both the spatial and temporal diversity of commercial wheat varieties found in fields, and tracked how that breadth changed over time across the country.

“Many perceive that science has led to cropping systems that are less biodiverse. We set out to see if that was indeed the case using newly developed, long-run data for a scientifically intensive cropping landscape,” said Philip Pardey, a professor in the Department of Applied Economics.

The researchers found:

The increasingly intensive use of scientifically-selected crop varieties has led to more, not less, biodiverse cropping practices, at least regarding biodiversity in the U.S. wheat crop.
This substantial increase in varietal diversity over the past century has been achieved in tandem with a fourfold increase in U.S. average wheat yields.

Success Story of Modern Agriculture

“The increasing number of locally adapted varieties and faster turnover of newer varieties grown by wheat farmers in the U.S. demonstrated a success story of modern agriculture achieved by farmers and breeders,” said lead author Yuan Chai, a researcher at GEMS Informatics Center.

“The push for farmers en masse to return to heirloom varieties or landraces is not a sustainable solution. Innovation in scientifically bred varieties is enabling us to feed more people on less land, fertilizer and water while improving overall crop diversity,” said Kevin Silverstein, scientific lead at the Supercomputing Institute.

The Wheat Genetics Resource Center at Kansas State University

The internationally recognized Wheat Genetics Resource Center is located at Kansas State University, that collects, conserves, and utilizes germplasm in crop improvement for sustainable production by broadening the crop genetic base.

Agriculture is being asked to address an increasingly large number of sustainable development challenges. In addition to the long-standing role of crop productivity improvement to alleviate poverty and improve food security, ever-more sustainable cropping systems are required to address the growing challenges posed by climate change, land and water scarcity, and new pest and disease threats.

Biodiversity, Breeding Innovation Needed

However, public investment in crop breeding research is now on the decline in the U.S., and falls chronically short in many other countries, especially lower-income countries. Building meaningful climate and pest resilience into the world’s food crops in ways that also achieve global food security goals requires doubling down on crop improvement research that enhances not undermines crop biodiversity.

Some of the analytic tools developed by the GEMS Informatics Center to examine this research are being further developed to enable other investigations of the changing crop diversity landscape in other crops and other countries.

This work was undertaken with primary support from the GEMS Informatics Center with funding from MnDRIVE, a partnership between the University of Minnesota and the State of Minnesota, and additional support from the International Science and Technology Practice and Policy Center and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. Partial support was also received from the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station.

Read more about the dedicated scientists producing new, improved wheat varieties:

Wheat Breeding Builds on Historic Processes and Genetic Traits

Public Wheat Breeding Programs Serving Southern and Central Plains Farmers

Public Wheat Breeding Serving Northern Plains Farmers

Public Wheat Breeding Serving Soft Red Winter Wheat Farmers

Public Wheat Breeding Serving West Coast Farmers

AgriPro and Westbred Apply Advanced Research in Wheat Breeding Programs