This latest Oklahoma State University wheat variety, released by OSU Ag Research in January 2026, doesn’t just have the standard resistance to leaf and stripe rust and high baking quality. It also contains anthocyanins, the same food pigments found in pomegranates and blueberries, which provide antioxidants that benefit gut and brain health.
“This is new — so new that I only know of a few wheat breeding programs in North America that are commercializing pigmented bran varieties,” said Dr. Brett Carver, Regents professor and wheat genetics chair in the OSU Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. “We were after qualities that are just not normally present in winter wheat.”
Carver said a major push is underway in wheat breeding to increase fiber content. White flour contains around 3% fiber, while whole wheat products contain 11%-12%.
“A big reason we dove into purple wheat is that most people are not consuming whole wheat products, which is where most fiber in flour comes from. Purple wheat might be one way to shift consumers to accepting whole grains,” Carver said, adding that many people claim purple wheat bread tastes better than traditional whole wheat products from red wheat.
“This product can connect us more directly to the consumer, and we need more of that,” he said.
Brady Sidwell, a wheat producer and business owner in Enid, has established a chain of companies that provides food commodity services from selling planting seeds to growers to the cold storage and distribution of fresh milled, stone-ground, whole-grain flour to bakeries, restaurants and food companies, and everything in between.
Source : okstate.edu