08/22/07 A new soft white and a new club wheat

Farm and Ranch August 22, 2007 A new soft white wheat that should be commercially available for growers next fall is Xerpha from Steve Jone's breeding program at Washington State University. Jones: "This is the highest yielding soft white winter wheat in the state of Washington last year. That is going head-to-head with 55 different varieties from 11 different breeding programs both public and private, and that was the number one. A very highly adapted wheat, which is unusual for use. Usually we get wheats like Bruehl that fit into specific locations. Xerpha should go almost statewide. We believe it could take out a tremendous amount of Tubbs, Eltan and Madsen acreage." Another wheat that may be widely available next fall is a new club, Cara from Kim Campbell with the ARS at Pullman. She says Cara has the best disease resistance package of any club wheat that is out there. Campbell: "Excellent stripe rust resistance. A combination of adult plant and seedling resistance. It also has powdery mildew resistance, which is rare. It has bunt resistance both common bunt and dwarf bunt. We don't see much bunt these days because we treat most of our seed but actually we get quite a bit of it." Campbell says Cara, which is a little earlier and shorter than Chuckar, also has good foot rot resistance. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.