Syngenta Research Looks to Hybrid Wheat (MT PrairieStar)
SeedToday
Heavy rainfall during the morning of July 27 drove the Syngenta Cereals wheat tour indoors, but those attending still had the opportunity to learn the latest information on the company's wheat breeding program.
David Boehm first explained the name change to those gathered for the event in Glyndon, Minn.
Now that AgriPro has been purchased by Syngenta, that group is referred to as Syngenta Cereals. Eventually the wheat breeding operations for this part of the country will be based in the Glyndon facility.
Syngenta Cereals has recently added a hybrid wheat breeding program to their portfolio, which will compliment their conventional wheat breeding program and their exploration for genetically modified traits in wheat, according to Boehm.
All of the breeding efforts will focus on varieties that will fit into Syngenta's Integrated Cropping Solutions (ICS) that will provide varieties that show compatibility with the full line of Syngenta crop protection and seed care products.
Joe Smith has been a wheat breeder for many years with AgriPro and sees big changes ahead in the wheat industry, genetically speaking.
"I've been working with wheat development for many, many years," said Smith, "but never has it been more exciting than what it is right now, and the future looks even more exciting."
In the past, Smith noted, all of the companies have been spending the large majority of their plant research and breeding budgets on other crops, with wheat programs receiving very little funding.
But that situation is starting to change on an industry-wide basis as more efforts are being directed to cereal grains and more especially to wheat.
One of the many thrusts of the wheat breeding research is to identify which lines work best in the ICS program, Smith said.
"What we are looking for is to try to identify genotypes that interact with the different chemistries that might be available currently or ones that are being developed," he said.
Currently, according to Smith, Syngenta and the United Kingdom company Limagrain are leading the industry in cereal grain research and breeding and Syngenta is definitely ahead as far as the North American market is concerned.
One way to maintain that leadership role is by embarking on a hybrid breeding program.
Pat Mehrer was recently hired to begin research work in that area. He said hybrid wheat has been around for a number of years, but companies usually pulled out of the production of hybrid wheat because of the cost factor.
Things have changed over the past few years to make hybrid wheat breeding a more viable option, including a large amount of technology coming out of Syngenta's successful hybrid barley breeding program in Germany.
However, it won't be until 2018 or 2019 before hybrid varieties will be available for spring wheat. Wheat growers should see a number of advantages in the hybrid lines, including:
- Hybrids will have hybrid vigor.
- Hybrids will have consistency under stress environments.
- Ability to use the hybrid with a ICS package
- Hybrids will offer up to a 15 percent yield advantage in most environments over conventional lines.
- Hybrids will offer more stability in yield and protein.
Smith also addressed a problem that plagues wheat producers in the southwestern part of the region - the wheat stem sawfly. His breeding program has developed two varieties that offer semi-solid stems, which is one of the solutions to the saw-fly problem.
However, in the past, there was sometimes a yield drag on a solid or semi-solid stem wheat variety.
But the new, experimental varieties now being evaluated have closed the yield gap with regular wheat varieties and one or both of the lines may be released for the next growing season, depending on trial yield results this fall.
"We are excited to have something that we could market in southwestern North Dakota and Montana - something that the growers are really calling for," Smith said. "Winter wheat or spring wheat, they want something that holds up to sawfly and one of the ways to do that is to offer solid stem or semi-solid stem varieties."
Ug 99 Rust: Responding to a question about the threat of Ug 99 Wheat Rust, Smith said, "I think we have things in our program that have resistance. It's a matter of identification and then making sure they are there if that particular (rust) race gets into North America."
He explained that the lines that they have developed for Ug 99 resistance are sent to Kenya for resistance evaluations. Kenya is one of the hot beds for Ug 99 rust in the world.
GM wheat: In the past, Syngenta was working on a Fusarium-resistant trait, but that was put on the shelf in 2007, according to Smith.
He claimed there are a lot of hurdles to be cleared yet for genetically modified wheat, with time being one of the biggest ones. Most in the industry don't expect to see a GM wheat on the market until 2024.
"That's quite a long time and that will help on our international markets," Smith said. "In the last five years, a lot has changed in Europe and their attitude toward GM wheat. In another 10 years or so, I think it will be acceptable in most of our international markets."
In closing, Boehm emphasized Syngenta will continue to be very aggressive in their conventional breeding program while initiating their hybrid and ICS phases.
"All three of these systems are completely independent - we're actually investing more into standard breeding. We're also investing more into hybrid breeding and more is being done to maximize whatever germplasm we have with crop protection products," he said. "All three of these things are fully funded by Syngenta - we aren't backing away from our current breeding program to add something else to it.
"In fact we are looking to hire 18 people nationwide, with half of them for our hybrid breeding program and the other half are for the standard breeding programs or the integrated solutions effort. It's full steam ahead."