Manhattan, Kansas, USA
November 3, 3009
From new wheat varieties to a new owner, WestBred - a wheat breeding company based in Butte, Montana - has had a fruitful 2009.
WestBred’s Santa Fe Hard Red Winter wheat variety was the third most popular in Kansas in 2008, and Sid Perry, Central Plains wheat breeder for the company, says two new varieties were available as certified seed this fall.
Armour is an early-maturing, medium-height variety with strong leaf rust, stripe rust and stem rust protection and is resistant to powdery mildew. Its background is the HybriTech and Pioneer breeding programs.
Hitch is a medium-short, later maturing variety that possesses strong leaf rust and stripe rust resistance and also features tan spot resistance. It hails from Karl 92 and the Goertzen breeding program, Perry says.
Both Hitch and Armour were leading varieties in the Kansas Crop Performance Tests in 2009. Perry says another WestBred variety, to be released in 2010, also had a good showing in the Performance Tests. Stout appears as WestBred 539 R in the 2009 trials.
“Stout has broad adaptation; we liked it in the east and we liked it in the west. We’re probably going to push it in the west to get a little more diversity in our product line for the west. Also, our test weights have been greater in the west compared to the east,” says Perry, who adds that Stout possesses a new line of leaf rust resistance for this area and that it should hold up longer than most current leaf rust lines.
Meanwhile, WestBred’s new owner brings a wealth of plant breeding and technology experience to the company. In July, Monsanto bought WestBred for $45 million, signaling Monsanto’s dramatic return to the wheat breeding business. WestBred has plant breeding stations throughout the Wheat Belt, so strategically, the acquisition made good sense for Monsanto.
For wheat farmers, the deal will pay off with more resources to create better varieties, Perry says.
“From a pure breeding standpoint, Monsanto will bring in its technology for di-haploids, marker-assisted selection and different things like that that will directly affect the way we do our breeding. From a biotech standpoint, some of the things they’re deploying in corn that would be applicable to wheat, like drought tolerance and more efficient nitrogen utilization, have been mentioned,” he explains. “We’ll see as time goes on but we’re sure that’s one of the directions we’re probably heading.”
Perry warns, however, that any new variety and technology takes time to develop for commercial release. Adding biotechnology to wheat varieties could take even longer, as federal agencies would have to approve this kind of technology in wheat.
“It is going to be a long process. Besides the regulatory issues, the breeding process will take time as well. We don’t expect to see anything in the field for another 12-13 years,” Perry says.
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