New soft white winter wheats from Idaho

Farm and Ranch July 7, 2009 Registered seed should be available this fall for Bitterroot, a new soft white winter wheat from the breeding program of Bob Zemetra at the University of Idaho.

Zemetra: “It is a soft white wheat that has the best cephalosporium stripe tolerance that I have had in my program. Another thing about it is it has excellent end use quality. One of my benchmarks is to have quality as good or equal, or better than Brundage. This one meets the Brundage requirement but actually has a little broader use in that it has the gluten strength to make good crackers also.”

Zemetra also has the experimental line 64901 A.

Zemetra: “But we are potentially calling it Bruno named after the sand dunes down south. And this one has the same excellent end use quality and actually a little greater yield potential than Bitterroot. Not as good on cephalosporium stripe but its yield potential in both eastern Washington and northern Idaho justify its release. Also the fact its end use quality is equal to or better than Brundage.”

If all goes according to plan Zemetra says there should be a small amount of foundation seed of the proposed Bruno this fall.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.