Wheat groups seek collaboration on wheat breeding

Farm and Ranch February 11, 2010 At a meeting last month the National Association of Wheat Growers/U.S. Wheat Associates Joint Biotech Committee adopted a policy called “Principles of Collaboration in Wheat Breeding and Biotechnology.” Committee Chairman Mark Darrington of Idaho explains what this is about.

Darrington: “And what this is, is a recommended protocol for universities to use as they deal with tech providers so that all the investment that growers have made over the years in research and development of good seed varieties that work well in a given, specific area are not all just lost as tech providers come in and want to pick up those varieties. So it is going to help the value capture mechanism so that grower investment is recognized in those public programs.”

Since the national wheat organizations announced they want to move forward on biotech or GMO wheat several private companies have announced they are getting into wheat variety development. Darrington says these tech firms made presentations at last month’s committee meeting.

Darrington: “Molly Klein of Monsanto. We also had Allen Scarborough of Bayer CropScience and then we also had a presentation from Syngenta where we had quite a bit of interaction from the group.”

Darrington says commercial release of GMO wheat is probably eight to 12 years down the road but there is a lot of work to be done between now and then in preparing customers and farmers.

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

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