Fargo, North Dakota
March 2, 2007
Faller, a new hard red spring
wheat variety, has been developed and released by the North
Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station, according to Al
Schneiter, North Dakota State
University Department of Plant Sciences chair.
Faller is expected to be best adapted to eastern and central
North Dakota, western Minnesota and northeast South Dakota.
"Based on yield advantage and current wheat prices, if Faller
were to replace just 35 percent of the acreage of Briggs and
Alsen in the eastern half of North Dakota, it would generate an
additional $16 million in annual income for North Dakota wheat
producers in those parts of the state," Schneiter says.
Faller has parentage that includes Amidon, Stoa, Kitt and an
NDSU experimental line derived from Sumai 3, a Chinese spring
wheat that is the source of the fusarium head blight (scab)
resistance in Alsen, according to Mohamed Mergoum, NDSU wheat
breeder.
According to NDSU plant pathologists, Faller has a level of scab
resistance similar to Alsen. It also has a relatively low DON
level. Faller has an excellent leaf disease resistance package,
particularly stem and leaf rust.
Faller has excellent yield potential under more optimum growing
conditions. In three years of tests in eastern and central North
Dakota, Faller yielded an average of 12.7 bushels per acre more
than Alsen and 9.7 bushels per acre more than Briggs. In trials
at drier locations in western North Dakota, Faller yielded less
than Alsen, Howard, Steele-ND and Reeder.
Faller is a semidwarf line with maturity and straw strength
about equal to Alsen. It has slightly lower protein and test
weight than recent NDSU releases, but is still in a very
acceptable range, Mergoum says. The milling and baking
parameters are good.
"Faller is named after Jim Faller, who had been a technician in
the NDSU hard red spring wheat breeding program for 29 years,"
Schneiter says. "Jim, originally from Dickinson, lost a
courageous battle with cancer in August 2006."
The North Dakota Wheat Commission provided some of the funding
for the development of Faller. |
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