AGRIPRO SEEDS, INC.
P.O. Box 30, Berthoud, CO 80513.
Ownership.
Rob Bruns.
On 23 December, 1998, the majority of the business assets (including
wheat) of Agripro Seeds, Inc. were sold to Garst Seed Co. AgriPro
is now part of the Advanta Seed Group. This organization has a
very strategic interest in the wheat business, and the current
Agripro staff is looking forward to integrating into this organization.
Hard winter wheat.
John Moffatt, Jerry Brick, and Bruce Fishburn.
The 1997-98 wheat crop was planted timely to late and into generally good moisture. The wheat crop across the region had very good tiller development and survived the winter in excellent condition. The southern states in the region began to dry out in May, but moderate temperatures allowed the crop to finish nicely. High temperatures stopped crop development from northern Oklahoma to McPherson, KS, giving an advantage to earlier maturing wheats. Production north of MacPherson was dependent primarily on timely rainfall and did not favor one maturity over another. In areas where moisture was limited throughout the season, as was the case in northwest Kansas, early and medium-early wheats were favored.
Disease pressure was relatively light with the exception of
heavy mildew early in the Haven/Hutchinson, KS, area and moderate
levels of tan spot across the continuous crop region. Leaf rust
did develop slowly and showed the same pattern as in 1996-97,
with Karl 92, 2163, Jagger, and 2137 being susceptible. Dry, hot
weather in mid to-late spring prevented significant northward
spread of leaf rust.
AgriPro selection and yield evaluations for 1997-98 mirrored production
in the region, with excellent crop performance. We were able to
harvest 10 of 12 yield-test locations. The Berthoud irrigated
nursery encountered extreme wind damage followed by cut worm damage,
late freeze damage, and finally high temperatures shortly after
flowering, conditions that abbreviated grain fill and limited
final yields. Yields at this location averaged 91 bu/acre. Yields
of popular cultivars ranged from 68 to 104 bu/acre. Nine continuous/fallow
sites averaged 60 bu/acre and ranged from 24 bu/acre at Hugoton,
KS, to 94 bu/acre at Paxton, NE.
AgriPro Hondo was released to our associate system in 1998, and AgriPro Thunderbolt was placed on foundation seed increase for release to associates in the autumn of 1999.
Hard red spring wheat.
Joe A. Smith, Scott Seifert, Linda Sizemore, and John Schabinger.
We were able to plant all sites on our first planting trip during the third week of April. In addition to five sites located in the Red River Valley, we added a small site in western North Dakota at Belfield. The seasonal conditions consisted of cool temperatures with below normal precipitation up to heading stage. A rainy period during heading was followed by dry and warmer conditions at most sites. Our yearly concern for Fusarium was not a factor at the southern locations. We had a general infection at our Grand Forks, ND, site and a confounded infection at our most northern site, Park River. At this site, the early varieties escaped infection. Our high yield potential varieties, such as AgriPro Ivan, AgriPro Hagar, and AgriPro Lars, were among the highest yielding varieties in the over all locations. AgriPro Gunner has continued to do well under Fusarium infections.
We have been presenting data ranked by economic return to the farmer based on yield, protein premiums, prices (10-year average), and test weight discounts. AgriPro Gunner has ranked at the top in this analysis over the past 3 years. The problem for farmers is predicting whether or not there will be protein premiums in any given year.
Good progress was made in identifying lines with Fusarium tolerance from standard germ plasm and Fusarium resistance from Asian sources. We have enough good materials identified that we have begun converting our U.S. germ plasm base to Asian resistance. Hopefully, by combining our tolerant, standard germ plasm with the Asian resistance, we can develop even better Fusarium resistance in the future. A number of resistant lines were evaluated in trials in 1998. Several good lines were identified but need additional testing. The earliest possible release of a Fusarium-resistant variety with Asian background could be 2001, but more likely 2002.
Our next spring wheat release has been named AgriPro Ivan. Ivan was tested under the experimental designation N93-0136. This variety has very high yield potential, good test weight, and very good foliar disease protection. AgriPro Ivan is medium-late in maturity, has excellent straw strength, and low protein. The cultivar comes from standard germ plasm and has only fair protection to Fusarium. As with all of our varieties, we recommend use of fungicide to reduce Fusarium infection (pending seasonal conditions). AgriPro Ivan will replace AgriPro Lars as our high production variety.
Delta soft red winter wheat.
J. Barton Fogleman, Jr. and Michael L. Montgomery. P. O. Box 2365, Jonesboro, AR 72402-2365 USA .
1997-98 midsouth seasonal summary. Planting conditions
were the usual mix of wonderful to terrible, depending upon what
day it was. The winter was generally mild with the exception of
a very cold week in November and another in early March. A mild
and relatively dry winter allowed wheats with shorter vernalization
requirements to be a bit too advanced in growth when the March
freezes came, resulting in some damage and yield reduction in
these earlier varieties. Consequently, later-maturing, more northern-type
wheats tended to have the highest grain yields across the region.
Take-all fungus severely damaged two of our plot locations. We
have not had many problems with this disease in the past. Curiously,
the field that sustained the heaviest damage had not been used
to grow wheat for at least 15 years. Perhaps the take-all fungus
can overwinter on certain grassy weeds.
We continue to study variety responses to rotation with rice and to heavy clay soils, because many of our farmers plant their wheat in less than ideal soils.
Agripro Marion is a new semidwarf SRWW release from our program that has very good test weight and is adapted to the midsouth and to the coastal plain regions of the Carolinas and Virginia.
Northern soft red winter wheat.
Curtis Beazer and Eugene Glover. 6025 West 300 South, Lafayette IN 47905, USA.
Planting in the autumn of 1997 was completed easily because of
mild weather. Autumn stands looked impressive. However, the winter
was very mild, spring came early in February, and stands became
thick and lush much too quickly. In southern Missouri and Kentucky,
warm weather caused varieties to start jointing early. A hard
spring frost occurred, and reports of 5075 % losses were
speculated. Some wheat was destroyed immediately but weather delays
prevented more from being abandoned. Remaining fields recovered
well and produced a reasonable yield considering tiller loss and
subsequent lodging.
In southern Indiana and Illinois, the wheat looked great and promised another record year. But rain throughout flowering raised the possibility of a severe Fusarium epidemic. Warm humid conditions followed the rain, and leaf blotch, glume blotch, and head scab destroyed the crop within days. Yields and test weights in this region ended up being very disappointing. This area rarely sees a positive result from fungicide, but improved yields and test weights were very evident where it was applied. The northern sites escaped some of this devastation and produced average to very good yields. Table 1 lists the yield means for 1997 and 1998 for the various areas in the northern SRWW growing area.
| Ohio | Indiana | Illinois | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| northern | central | western | central | southern | southern | ||||
| Year | no till | no till | northern | central | southern | no til | no till | no till | |
| 1997 | 72 | 71 | 74 | 57 | 41 | 79 | 80 | 48 | --- |
| 1998 | 44 | 66 | 71 | 61 | 36 | 46 | 45 | --- | 68 |
Agripro Patton (M94-1048) is a SRWW developed and released by Agripro Seeds Inc. at Lafayette, IN. Patton is a white-chaffed, awnletted, medium-height, midseason variety with very good resistance to head scab. Agripro patton has very good winter hardiness and has very good resistance to leaf blotch, leaf rust, soil virus, and powdery mildew. The cultivar is susceptible to glume blotch. Patton is best adapted to the double-crop regions from central Missouri to Virginia.
Canada.
Kevin McCallum, Proven Research Farm, P.O. Box 2549, Morden, Manitoba, Canada.
Agripro and the United Grain Growers (Proven Seed) have a large wheat development project for western Canada. Primary emphasis has been on the CWRS class, with minor emphasis on the CPS class. The breeding programs for this project have been place since 1987. We have a mature program with advanced lines regularly entered into the official registration trials.
In 1998, we had eight locations located in the black soil zones of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Interestingly, Fusarium was identified at nearly all sites. Heavy infections were encountered at Rosebank, Elgin. and Neepawa sites in Manitoba. General tolerance for Fusarium has been evident in several of the CWRS varieties. With the regular Fusarium infections over the past 6 years at Rosebank (our main breeding site), we have had good success in shifting much of our breeding materials towards tolerance for this class. On the other hand, varieties of the CPS wheats have been very susceptible to Fusarium. We have been incorporating the Asian source of resistance into this germ plasm.