08/08/06 The OSU wheat breeding pipeline

Farm and Ranch August 8, 2006 After an updated version of Tubbs that is more resistant to stripe rust gets to seed producers this fall, that's Tubbs 06, Oregon State University has a couple more soft white winter wheats on the way. OSU wheat breeder Jim Peterson says they are aimed to overcome some of the deficiencies of Tubbs. Peterson; "And we'd like to get back to something with that same high yield potential but with shorter straw, better disease resistance and a little earlier maturity. And we've got that with two that we have now on breeder seed increase. Both of these are selections out of what where the Hybritech materials that were donated to OSU about five years ago now. But these are the cream of the crop out of those selections. We are looking at the release of a line we call 920 right now for potentially a year from now and 085 another selection a year after that. So some real high end open release soft whites that I am real excited about that will fit in, relieve some of the straw problems we have with Tubbs in certain situations and get us that same high yield potential as we have with Tubbs or even better." Peterson also has two hard red winter wheats on increase, which he says have good protein quality and were developed through an exchange with a French company. They could be released as early as 2007. The program also has four hard white winter wheats with good yield potential. If one or two of them makes the cut Peterson says they could have one out in two years. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.