Cara Wheat Variety Proves Positive

Cara Wheat Variety Proves Positive

I’m KayDee Gilkey with today’s Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

A new white winter club wheat variety developed by USDA researchers named Cara appears to improve yield and protect against stripe rust for Pacific Northwest wheat growers as well as providing a specialty flour for the export market.?
USDA Agricultural Research Service wheat geneticist Kim Garland-Campbell shares more about club wheat a niche crop unique to our region.
Garland Campbell: “It is a a specialty type of wheat that is extremely soft-textured. And very low gluten strength so about as opposite to bread wheat as you can get. It is used to makes cakes -- it makes very good cake flour. Most of it is exported to the Asian Rim where they like to make sponge cakes out of it. They also use it as a blending to tailor their flour to specific products.”

In addition to the milling benefits, this variety demonstrated in field studies a three to 18 percent improvement in performance of Cara versus other club wheat varieties. However the proof is always the feedback received from wheat farmers who’ve used Cara since it became available in 2011.
Garland Campbell: What they have said to me is that they really appreciate having lines like Cara out there because they can go buy the club wheat seed and plant it and not then they really don’t have to worry about it. They know they will get a good quality crop.”
In addition having strong stripe rust resistance, Cara also carries genes for fungal disease resistance to straw breaker foot rot and powdery mildew.