St. Louis, Missouri, USA
February 24, 2017
Ten new regionally tested, locally adapted WestBred® wheat varieties, providing outstanding yield potential and featuring improved agronomic and disease packages, have been released to Certified Seed suppliers and will be available to growers in their respective areas of adoption in 2018.
“We’re incredibly excited to add such a diverse and advanced group of varieties to our product portfolio,” said Matthew Rowland, Wheat Product Manager at Monsanto. “These new varieties represent the latest and most advanced wheat releases developed by our expert breeders and endorsed by our regional field teams.”
The WestBred breeding program, located at the Wheat Technology Center in Twin Falls, Idaho, combines an elite team of breeders and state-of-the-art Monsanto technologies to lead innovation across the wheat industry.
“With the expansion of the Wheat Technology Center, we’ve been able to utilize tools developed over the last several decades by Monsanto. We’re integrating proven techniques from other core crops into wheat and accelerating our ability to improve product performance,” said Mark Newell, Monsanto Spring Wheat Breeder.
With these new product releases, WestBred wheat adds seven Hard Red Spring varieties, two Hard Red Winter varieties and one Soft White Winter variety to an already robust portfolio, each with improved characteristics for its adaptation area.
- WB9350 is an awned Hard Red Spring wheat variety with high grain yield potential for California and the Pacific Northwest. It has excellent lodging resistance and a very good overall disease package.
- WB9479 is a medium-maturing Hard Red Spring variety with high yield and protein potential for the Dakotas and Minnesota. Excellent test weight and standability and a good disease resistance package are all combined in this medium-short variety.
- WB9578, a Hard Red Spring variety, displays excellent yield potential for irrigated crop systems in Montana, Idaho and Washington. This medium-short, medium-maturing variety has excellent standability and test weight, along with Yellow (Stripe) Rust and Leaf Rust resistance.
- WB9590 is a broadly adaptive Hard Red Spring variety with outstanding yield potential and protein content for Minnesota, Montana and North Dakota. A short plant height contributes to the variety's superb standability. This variety’s disease resistance package includes very good Leaf Rust and Yellow (Stripe) Rust resistance.
- WB9616CLP, a Hard Red Spring variety with Clearfield® Plus Technology, combines excellent yield potential with the flexibility of the Clearfield Production System for tough-to-control grassy weeds in Montana. Best suited for dryland conditions, WB9616CLP is a medium-short variety with very good standability and Hessian Fly and Yellow (Stripe) Rust resistance.
- WB9662 is a Hard Red Spring variety with outstanding protein potential and milling and baking quality. With a medium-late maturity, WB9662 provides growers with very good yield potential and excellent resistance to Yellow (Stripe) Rust and Leaf Rust. This variety has excellent dual-season potential for winter planting in the Northwest and southern Texas.
- WB9719 is a broadly adaptive, medium-late-maturing Hard Red Spring variety with outstanding yield potential. Suitable for irrigated to dryland environments across the Pacific Northwest and Montana, this medium-short variety has excellent standability and test weight and a strong disease resistance package.
- WB1783 is an improved Soft White Winter wheat for the Pacific Northwest that can serve as a companion to WB1529 and as a replacement for the very popular varieties of WB 456, WB 523 and WB-528. It is a solid-stem variety with excellent Yellow (Stripe) Rust resistance.
- WB4269 is a medium-early-maturing Hard Red Winter wheat with very good adaptability in the Central and Southern Plains. It has improved Fusarium Head Blight (Scab) resistance for this region and can serve as a solid companion variety to WB4515 and WB4458.
- WB4575 is an excellent dryland variety for the Montana market. Its agronomic package makes it a choice growers will like, while its quality and protein profile make it an excellent choice for baking and milling. Excellent Wheat Stem Sawfly resistance has been observed, though this is not a solid-stem variety.
“WestBred wheat is pleased to offer our valued grower customers improved genetics that are developed by our focused wheat breeding team, proven across our regional testing program and verified by our technical product field team,” said Dr. Jeff Koscelny, Global Wheat Business Strategy Lead. “This year’s class of products exemplifies the advancements that can be made in wheat genetics when the myriad of technological advancements is brought into harmony.”
Many of the new varieties will be included in the WestBred Certified Seed Only (CSO) program. CSO-designated varieties exhibit industry-leading performance and are protected by a Single Use License Agreement that maintains growers may only use the purchased seed variety for planting and producing a single crop and may not save any grain produced from the seed for future planting by the grower or any other person.
Recently, a settlement was reached for an undisclosed amount between WestBred wheat and a Montana grower who replanted grain of a CSO-designated variety, a direct violation of the binding contractual agreement. Maintaining a profitable playing field for wheat growers, an environment conducive for professional seed suppliers to serve their customers and the development of a stable market that rewards increased investment in the most advanced varieties are key factors that will serve to keep wheat in its rightful spot in U.S. agriculture. WestBred wheat is proud to support these efforts today and in the future.
About WestBred Wheat
WestBred wheat provides seed suppliers and their growers access to the highest yield potential wheat seed, as well as testing, education, resources and experienced representatives to help maximize their yield potential.
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