Rob Graf wrapped up his career as a plant breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on a high note this summer as he introduced another new top-performing winter wheat variety that appears to have a great fit in all crop regions across Western Canada.
At a field day on Stamp Seeds’ farm at Enchant, north of Lethbridge, Alta., Graf saw his first field of AAC Coldfront, a hard red winter wheat, which entered the final registration phase this past February. Up until visiting this field of what will become breeders’ seed, he had only seen the new variety in research plots.
AAC Coldfront, which should be available as registered seed to farmers by 2024 or 2025, is a milling quality winter wheat variety that appears to fire on all agronomic and marketing cylinders. New, high-performing winter wheat varieties developed in recent years may become game changers in terms of encouraging more farmers to grow winter cereals, says Graf.
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“There aren’t many features Coldfront doesn’t have,” says Graf, who wrapped up a 35-year career as a plant breeder in July. “It is high yielding, it has great winter hardiness, it is sort of medium-short with good straw strength and standability and a high test weight (about 66 pounds per bushel). It has excellent disease resistance including an intermediate resistance to fusarium head blight.”
While AAC Coldfront was rated resistant to stem, leaf and stripe rusts, it is susceptible to common bunt; however, Graf says if proper seed treatments are applied that shouldn’t be an issue.
“It also has a great fit across all production areas,” says Graf. “It yields well under irrigation but also performs very well under dryland growing conditions from central Alberta to the Peace River Region and east to Manitoba.”
In variety trials across Western Canada, AAC Coldfront had significantly higher grain yields (on average about 111 per cent) than all of the checks in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In Manitoba, AAC Coldfront was significantly higher yielding than CDC Buteo and Moats, and marginally higher than AC Emerson and AAC Elevate.
One other feature about AAC Coldfront that usually isn’t measured in winter wheat varieties is it appears to be a more efficient variety in terms of water use.
“It is a high-yielding variety with a protein concentration similar to the check mean (about 12.4 per cent),” says Graf. “And it demonstrated an improved capacity to convert soil water and nutrients into grain under a wide range of western Canadian field conditions.
“It isn’t something we usually measure, but it appears that AAC Coldfront is a more efficient variety, which may be important from an environmental standpoint,” he says. “It can achieve high yield and quality even under more stressful growing conditions.” AAC Coldfront has maturity similar to AC Radiant winter wheat (registered in 2004), about 220 days, but it does head out earlier.
Other great options
While seed multiplication is taking place over the next couple of years, western Canadian farmers still have excellent winter wheat varieties to chose from.
Two other varieties that have come out of Graf’s winter wheat breeding program in recent years include AAC Wildfire and AAC Network.
AAC Wildfire, which hit the marketplace in 2015, is now the most popular winter wheat variety in Western Canada, says Graf.
Licensed to SeCan, AAC Wildfire is an awned hard red winter wheat variety with exceptional grain yield potential and very good winter hardiness. AAC Wildfire also has medium height and excellent lodging tolerance. However, it is a bit of a later-maturing variety, rated at 221 days to maturity.
AAC Wildfire is especially well suited to Alberta and Saskatchewan and would be a potential replacement for AC Radiant and CDC Buteo. And although, generally, the Russian wheat aphid is no longer a concern across Western Canada, AAC Wildfire was developed with Russian wheat aphid resistance.
Coming along a few years later and marketed through SeedNet, a company owned by 14 independent southern Alberta seed growers, is AAC Network (visit seednet.ca).
Considered as a replacement for AAC Gateway, AAC Network is a milling quality winter wheat variety that has high protein.
Its key features are it stands very well with short, strong straw. Along with grain for milling, it also is described as being perfect for winter wheat silage when grown under irrigation or higher fertility. The variety has good winter survival, is rated as having intermediate resistance to fusarium head blight (although winter wheats typically flower before fusarium head blight timing and so can avoid the disease) and a better rust disease package. Compared with AAC Gateway, AAC Network has more drought tolerance and higher protein. AAC Network also matures a bit later with 213 days to maturity.
A crop to consider
The improved agronomics of winter wheat and other winter cereals make them crops worthy of consideration, says Monica Klaas, agronomist with the Western Winter Wheat Initiative, based in Alberta.
“My primary message to farmers is if you haven’t tried winter wheat or it has been a while since you’ve grown a winter cereal crop then try it,” says Klaas. “Particularly with the winter wheats, there are several new and much-improved varieties now available to growers that are high yielding and produce excellent returns.”
The Western Winter Wheat Initiative is a collaboration between Bayer Crop Science, Ducks Unlimited Canada and Richardson International Ltd. The purpose of the initiative is to demonstrate how winter wheat is a highly productive crop option for western Canadian farmers. Each year, new varieties with greater yield advantage, disease tolerance and other important traits are introduced to the market, making winter wheat an excellent agronomic fit in crop rotations.
“It starts with a commitment on behalf of the farmer to give it a try,” says Klaas. “There have been different times I’ve talked to farmers who sounded interested, but then later they will say, ‘I never got around to it.’
“Growing a winter cereal does take some planning and really doesn’t work as an afterthought,” she says. “You need to have seed on the farm, have fertilizer on hand, get seeding equipment ready and be prepared you may have to get some seeding done in between harvesting days. But it does pay off in the long run.”
Klaas says winter wheat isn’t bulletproof against adverse weather, but it does offer some risk management benefits. The crop can take advantage of early spring moisture and if conditions turn dry during the summer, most likely the winter wheat seed heads will already have been filled and hardening off just ahead of harvest.
“And with good management and decent growing conditions, it is not uncommon to see winter wheat yields in the 130-bushel-per-acre range,” she says.
For more information on the agronomics and benefits of growing winter wheat, visit www.growwinterwheat.ca.
