Washington Genetics Out With Four Varieties With Growers Needs In Mind

As wheat growers across the Pacific Northwest look ahead to a 2022, Washington Genetics is out with four varieties that they say will help growers weather the adversity typically associated with growing here. Marci Miller with Washington Genetics said their four new varieties for this season, Devote, Scorpio, Sockeye CL+ and Piranha CL+ all have excellent disease resistance packages.

“All of them are the high qualities with excellent yield potential, the proteins on all of them are all more than either high or excellent or very good.  So, we’re looking at these four varieties that are really well, broadly adapted.”

She noted that all four varieties are “Bred to Dominate the Field”.

Why would growers select varieties engineered by Washington Genetics? Miller says they are focused on innovative technology and work very closely with Washington State University. She noted that WSU researchers understands the needs of growers in the Pacific Northwest.

“They’re focused and they are testing is to meet the need of all of the different environmental areas with the PNW.  We work hand in hand with the breeders to try to give them feedback, what’s working large scale, what’s not working large scale and what the growers are needing.”

Devoteis a soft white winter wheat developed and released in 2019 by the Agricultural Research Center of Washington State University. Devote was named in honor of all the past winter wheat breeders of WSU who devoted so much effort into developing germplasm for the low rainfall regions of the state. It is best adapted to the <15″ annual rainfall production regions of Washington and Idaho. Devote has excellent yield potential under these dry conditions, and can take advantage of excess moisture during the growing season when it comes. It has excellent emergence from deep planting and very good cold tolerance. Devote also has an excellent disease package, combining stripe rust resistance, strawbreaker foot rot resistance, snow mold tolerance, and Fusarium crown rot tolerance.

Scorpio is a hard red winter wheat developed and released in 2019 by the Agricultural Research Center of Washington State University. Scorpio is well adapted across the >15″ rainfall zones of the Pacific Northwest. It has very high yield potential, high test weight, and very good protein content. Scorpio has excellent adult plant resistance to stripe rust, is tolerant of low pH soils, and has Hessian fly resistance. The end-use quality of Scorpio is also very good, meeting the standards of both domestic and export markets.

Piranha CL+ has very high yield potential and broad adaptability across production regions.  It has a small yield advantage over Sockeye CL+ in the very dry, deep-furrow planting regions of the state. Piranha CL+ is suited for production in many areas of the PNW, and has stronger straw strength than Curiosity CL+.

Sockeye CL+also has very high yield potential and broad adaptability across productions regions.  It would be recommended for production in the intermediate and high rainfall areas of the PNW.  Sockeye CL+ has shown very high end yield potential in the high rainfall zones of the PNW, and even though it has a taller plant height, lodging in these areas has not been noted in small plot trials.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail gvaagen@cherrycreekmedia.com