Researchers say perennial wheat in sight

Farm and Ranch June 28, 2010 Perennial grains would be one of the largest innovations in the 10-thousand year history of agriculture and may not be that many years in the future. That’s what Washington State University researchers say in a paper published in the journal “Science.”

According to Kevin Murphy, assistant research professor at WSU, the paper says we need to step up our research if we want perennial wheat to succeed.

Murphy: “I believe that within 20-years we can get a perennial wheat variety. Perhaps even soon than that if we start to invest more research dollars into perennial wheat.”

Murphy cites some of the benefits of perennial versus annual wheats.

Murphy: “They require much fewer inputs in general. They require less plowing, less seeding and so there is less fossil fuel used. It also works very well on steep hillsides because it can minimize erosion. Also it has a root system that is capable of extracting nutrients from the soil to a greater extent we think than this annual wheat.”

The authors of the paper in “Science” call for a commitment to perennial grain research similar to that underway for biologically based alternative fuels.

John Reganold, a WSU Regents professor of soil science was the lead author of the paper along with Jerry Glover, a WSU-trained soil scientist now at the Land Institute in Kansas. Among other contributors was Steve Jones, Director of WSU’s Mount Vernon Research Center, who has led more than a decade of work on perennial wheat at WSU.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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