Syngenta’s New Spring Wheat Variety Offers Adaptability

Jan 15, 2021

To help Pacific Northwest (PNW) wheat growers navigate tricky growing conditions in their highly diverse region, Syngenta is adding a new widely adapted soft white spring wheat variety to the company’s proven portfolio of AgriPro brand wheat. AP Coachman is available to purchase as certified seed for the 2021 spring wheat planting season.

Home to varied climates and diverse landscapes, the PNW features a mix of growing conditions and moisture zones. From planting to harvest, wheat producers must remain vigilant and monitor changes in weather and precipitation that could bring unwanted threats from pests and disease. AP Coachman offers the flexibility needed for PNW growers, offering a strong pest and disease package and wide adaptation across moisture zones.

In addition to these agronomic benefits, AP Coachman also offers proven performance. In three years of Syngenta trials, AP Coachman consistently yielded higher bushels per acre than the average across multiple locations in the PNW. Trial results show AP Coachman produces very good test weight, good straw strength and good end-use quality. This medium height and late maturity variety is also resistant to Hessian fly and features good tolerance to stripe rust.

“Planting certified seed varieties like AP Coachman is a great way to start off the year strong and ensure high-quality performance all season,” says Riley Hille, AgriPro key account lead in the Western region. “AP Coachman has undergone rigorous testing — both in the lab and in the field — to ensure it meets the needs of PNW growers, and we’re eager to see how it benefits producers across the region.”

Backed by more than 50 years of wheat breeding expertise, AgriPro brand wheat varieties are consistent top performers that offer best-in-class disease packages, leading agronomics and outstanding yields.

Source : Seed World

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators