3-5 FB Stripe Rust

  University of Idaho wheat breeder Jianli Chen began work in 2007 for the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the Aberdeen Research and Extension Center. Since then, she has focused on developing new varieties of hard white wheat highly prized by flour millers. Near the top of Chen’s priority list are breeding resistance to stripe rust and a drought tolerance in varieties that maintain the high protein so highly prized in hard white wheat.

  In 2013, Chen hopes to release a new hard white spring wheat for irrigated production in southern Idaho. It has good protein qualities and high yields while showing good resistance to stripe rust. As a result of the 2011 stripe rust epidemic in southern Idaho, she delayed the release to evaluate that resistance further during 2012.

 Using accelerated breeding techniques to develop resistant spring and winter wheat varieties, Chen hopes to help growers avoid at least a portion of their fungicide costs. Dr. Chen is very careful to state that her work is not quite yet complete: “We want to have one more year to confirm the stripe rust resistance and I am hoping to release in 2013.”