More on Xerpha soft white winter wheat

Farm and Ranch September 23, 2009 Yesterday we reported on the uncertainty of the quality of Xerpha soft white winter wheat, developed in Steve Jones’ breeding program at Washington State University. That’s raised questions about marketability. The Washington Grain Commission won’t comment on the variety’s quality until it gets a third year of milling and baking data, which is coming from this year’s harvest.

Normally the quality data from this year wouldn’t be out until early next year but Rich Koenig, chair of WSU’s Crop and Soil Sciences Department, says sample testing may be sped up.

Koenig: “The wheat quality lab is trying to push those through early so that we do get some information out as soon as possible. A new sample has gone to the millers and end-users so they will have an opportunity to look at another large sample of Xerpha to see how it performs in their lab and certainly will try to put this to rest one way or another.”

There have also been questions about Xerhpa’s disease package. Regarding foot rot, Xerpha is described as highly tolerant. It does not however, contain the resistance gene that the variety Madsen does.

Dr. Xianming Chen with the Agricultural Research Service at Pullman says Xerpha does have high temperature adult plant resistance for stripe rust, however:

Chen: “If you grow Xerpha in areas where rust starts early, when the weather is cool, you can get quite a bit of infection.”

So says Chen, there may be years when Xerpha would need a fungicide treatment.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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