"Diva" soft white spring wheat gets final okay

"Diva" soft white spring wheat gets final okay

Washington Ag Today March 25, 2010 The varietal release committee at Washington State University has approved the final release for the soft white spring wheat Diva. The variety was developed by now former WSU spring wheat breeder Kim Kidwell, who talked about Diva or Washington 8090, in a previous interview.

Kidwell: “Boy, this thing is the real meal deal. It has every beneficial attribute we like in a spring variety. It is a very high yielder. Has very high test weight. Has good high temperature plant resistance to stripe rust. There is some durability there. One hundred percent resistant to the Hessian fly. It has the best milling and baking quality of any soft white spring wheat coming out of this region. The thing we like the most about that line is it‘s a yield bump we haven‘t seen in other lines. This one has significantly pounded some of our better stuff in yield trials. So, it got the famous label the next yield monster because of that. So, it really looks good and we are excited about it and a lot of growers are excited about it too.”

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Agricultural Research Service scientist Xianming Chen at Pullman says he has not found any stripe rust yet in wheat fields in eastern Washington. However, Chen says the disease is very active on the west side in the Mt. Vernon area and is relatively more severe compared to previous years. Chen says growers in the Skagit Valley should consider using fungicides if a susceptible variety was planted. The ARS scientist points out that the area generally does not provide inoculum for eastern Washington.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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