NDSU, Monsanto wheat agreement may reclaim acres

Wheat acreage has been decreasing in North Dakota, and North Dakota State University (NDSU) wheat breeders hope a recent collaboration with Monsanto will make a difference in bringing back some of those acres.

The state grew 5.75 million acres of hard red spring wheat (HRSW) last year, which is historically low, said Mohamed Mergoum, NDSU spring wheat breeder.
“That puts a lot of stress and burden on us on how can we get those acres back,” Mergoum said.

The agreement with Monsanto, announced last fall, means NDSU and Monsanto will both benefit from sharing resources, wheat genetics and wheat breeding technology tools, he added.

“At NDSU, we have the genetics gained from more than 120 years of wheat breeding,” Mergoum said. “This agreement with Monsanto is about our future. We want to be able to access their technologies.”

Joint research projects to develop new breeding and genetic tools will improve the breeding efficiencies of both programs, and provide the best genetic material to North Dakota producers in the future, he said.

With federal budget cuts, NDSU needs more research funding to continue the wheat breeding programs, accelerate its research and keep up with new technologies, he added.

“We want to be able to keep releasing new varieties. I believe you should have choices in varieties,” he said.

Mergoum spoke to producers about new HRSW varieties and the wheat breeding programs at NDSU during NDSU’s Hettinger Research Extension Center’s (HREC) field days earlier this month.

One producer asked if the Monsanto-NDSU collaboration would mean there could come a time when farmers could not keep and plant their wheat seed the next year and/or if they would they have to buy new seed every year, no matter how old the variety.

“That is a good question,” Mergoum said. “We know it won’t be business as usual, and there could be a lot of bumps in the road as we get started.”

In addition to NDSU, other public universities also have made arrangements with private companies to share germplasm for their public wheat breeding programs.

He encouraged producers to let NDSU know what they want with the wheat breeding program and continue to invest in the public program.

“If you want choices in wheat varieties, you should invest in your public universities,” Mergoum said.

NDSU also wants to ensure other countries continue to accept North Dakota’s wheat.

“We export more than 50 percent of our wheat, so it is important it is acceptable to our customers,” Mergoum said.

The NDSU HRSW variety Barlow has surpassed Glenn as the number one wheat in the state.

“Glenn is still the standard for quality, but Barlow has better yields,” Mergoum said, adding Barlow consistently performs about two to three bushels better than other varieties, especially in the western regions. Barlow has excellent protection against leaf and stem rust.

Rust continues to be a problem for breeders to stay ahead of the current races out there. Over the last two to three years, there is a new emerging leaf rust race Lr21, but it hasn’t spread yet.

“We want to get ahead of it in case it does spread,” Mergoum said.

He said the new HRSW release Elgin is well adapted to the spring wheat growing areas of North Dakota, with very high yields compared to other varieties grown in the state, and has some mild resistance to Lr21.

“Elgin has a little bit of resistance,” he said, adding even that little bit is higher than most varieties. Overall, Elgin has good milling flour extraction ratings and baking qualities, similar to Barlow and Howard, with moderate resistance to scab, leaf, and stem rust.

Elgin also has excellent protein ratings that are nearly comparable to Glenn, but superior to Faller and Barlow with average test weight, he said.
At HREC, Elgin yielded 77 bushels per acre with 16.3 percent protein in 2012.

Mergoum said Elgin’s real name is Elgin-ND. What happened is the same thing that happened to Steele-ND and a couple other varieties. After they were named for the location they were bred for (Elgin is in southwest North Dakota), breeders found out some other variety in the distant past had the same name so they had to add ND to the variety for legal purposes.

“We do expect Elgin to become widespread across the state,” he said.

The HRSW variety Reeder has been best to plant in drought situations, and NDSU believes Elgin will be comparable to Reeder in drier conditions.

Velva is a 2011 HRSW release, and has been found to be a good yielder in central and western North Dakota. Mergoum said NDSU breeders expect it to take over Reeder’s popularity, which has long been the favorite HRSW for high yields in western North Dakota and eastern Montana.

The protein of Velva HRSW has been good, similar to Reeder with average milling properties, he said. Test weight is similar to Reeder, and Velva has an excellent leaf disease package and better than Reeder.

South Dakota State University has released Forefront and Advance HRSWs, which are good yielders but lower in protein than other varieties, Mergoum said.
Mott HRSW is the sawfly resistant variety that continues to be good for producers who have sawfly problems, he said.

During the HREC field days event, John Rickertsen, new agronomist, said the crops have recovered well from the hail that swept through the area.

Field crops were growing nicely on the warm day, and Ken Grafton, NDSU vice president for ag affairs, said the crops were some of the nicest they’ve seen as they have crossed the state to attend field days at NDSU research centers.