Beef Day On The Hill & Heat Tolerant Grain

Beef Day On The Hill & Heat Tolerant Grain

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

It’s Beef Day on the hill today, and just in case you don’t know what that is Jack Field with the Washington Cattlemen’s Association is here to tell us.

FIELD: This is our fifth year of doing Beef Day and it’s an opportunity for cow calf feeders, dairy and beef processors to come together and provide quite possibly the best free lunch you’ll find in Washington state.

There are other factors to Beef Day than just great beef sandwiches.

FIELD: It’s a great opportunity to discuss various legislative issues or regulatory issues that may be facing livestock and agricultural producers in Washington state, as well as just have a chance to put a face to the industry.

Field has this to say to those planning on joining beef producers in Olympia today.

FIELD: We’ll guarantee they’ll have the best tri-tip sandwich they can find.

As part of the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future, Washington State University will be leading a $16.2 million effort to develop wheat varieties that are better at tolerating the high temperatures found in most of the world’s growing regions. Climate Resilient Wheat Project researchers will combine conventional and newly developed breeding tools to identify genes or sets of genes associated with heat tolerance. A wheat plant’s productivity falls off dramatically when temperatures rise above 82 degrees F. Temps above 82 degrees in the flowering stage can cut yields by 3 to 4 percent. The goal is to have the first set of “climate- resilient” varieties within five years.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.