OSU's Wheat Improvement Team Sets Sights On Experimentals For The Future

 

 

Reflecting on Oklahoma’s wheat crop this year, Oklahoma State University’s Wheat Genetics Chair Dr. Brett Carver says there were quite a few selections that really separated some good lines from some not so good lines of wheat varieties. Dr. Carver took some time out during the recent Oklahoma Wheat Review to speak to Radio Oklahoma Network’s Associate Farm Director Carson Horn about some of things that influenced the selection decisions of OSU’s Wheat Improvement team.

 

“As everybody would expect, stripe rust led that list,” Carver said. “And it was stripe rust, not necessarily when we’d expect to see stripe rust, in April, but an early stripe rust infection.”

 

Carver says that with the help of his colleagues on the Wheat Improvement team, he was able to sort through the available genetic material to figure out what would work best for that timing of an infection; not just the kind or race of infection. Carver says his team also dealt with freezes and a case of leaf rust not seen since 2009 or 2010. Carver also says yields were high enough this year to challenge straw strength a bit more than normally done.

 

All things considered, Dr. Carver is already looking to next year.

 

“We have an experimental we’d like to see take the place of Doublestop down the road…,” Carver said, “that I think will provide a more uniform crop than what we see with Doublestop, everything else being the same. Maybe higher yield.”