Xerpha and stripe rust
Farm and Ranch June 15 ,2009 The new soft white winter wheat Xerpha out of Steve Jones winter wheat breeding program at Washington State University, is picking up stripe rust in nurseries in Oregon this year. Oregon State University Cereal Extension Specialist Mike Flowers told growers attending the recent Pendleton Station Field Day about Xerpha and stripe rust. Flowers says the variety does have adult plant resistance. Flowers: “And as it goes on it will shut down the disease but we do have a varying range of resistance that you can have with high temperature adult plant resistance. So we know for example that the Tubbs variety and the Tubbs 06 are intermediate so they have high temperature adult resistance but they can get stripe rust and sometimes that stripe rust can get bad enough that we have to treat with a fungicide and that similar with what we are seeing with Xerpha right now. As we see more and more of the variety and we get more of the infections we will get a better look and better feel on how it is going to go, but right now it looks like its fallen in that same range with an intermediate to Tubbs.” Another point Flowers made to Oregon growers is that Xerpha is later maturing. Flowers: “It has done really well in the Washington trials. When we get to the Oregon conditions that later maturity sort of pushes it down towards the middle of the pact because we favor early maturing wheats in this area.” I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
