Although malting barley once yielded significantly less than higher-yielding feed types, this has now changed. 

“There’s been a pretty large increase in yield,” says Andrew Hector, cereal crop extension specialist with the Manitoba Crop Alliance. Newer varieties now produce yields close to CDC Austin, the top feed variety, he added. 

As a result farmers growing barley for feed are increasingly opting to grow a malting variety, even if it’s just to keep the door open to getting that malting barley premium, which can be as high as $3 per bushel, Hector says. 

But he says one of the biggest advantages of growing barley is that it gives farmers more control come harvest time. 

“It helps you space out your harvest if equipment or personnel constraints limit your options, offering more time management flexibility,” he says. 

Speaking to attendees at the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre’s CMBTC Producer Malt Academy course in Winnipeg last fall, Hector notes malting barley fits roughly into the same slot as wheat in a rotation. 

“Barley planted after cereal saw relatively low yield compared to something like canola,” he says, adding that in Manitoba over half of barley acres were planted into canola stubble.

Variety selection 

A good starting place for variety selection is the CMBTC’s annual Malting Barley Recommended Varieties list. 

Established varieties like AAC Synergy and CDC Copeland remain farmer favourites, while newer varieties such as AAC Connect, CDC Fraser, and CDC Churchill are quickly gaining in popularity. As mentioned, these new varieties are high-yielding, but also have better disease resistance and straw strength.

READ ALSO: New cereals on deck for 2025

“Some of the older varieties have poor lodging (resistance), and they didn’t stand as well, but lodging has vastly improved with these new varieties,” Hector says. 

The CMBTC recommends growers talk to their malting, grain, or seed company representatives to discuss options for growing malting barley. Farmers should also consult their provincial seed guide.

READ ALSO: New malting barley variety acceptance an uphill battle

Varietal purity 

Brewers demand variety purity in order to ensure consistency for their products. Shawn Pasieczka, a food safety grain specialist with Richardson International, said Richardson requests a minimum of 95 per cent purity and tests for it. To meet those standards, he recommends using certified seed.  

While Pasieczka says it’s possible to replant seed saved from previous crops, he warned that some buyers require certified seed. Even if the grower works with a company that doesn’t require certified seed, he recommended retesting the seed to ensure purity, and not to plant seed more than two years beyond certification. 

Seeding dates 

Generally, the recommended dates for planting barley depend on the region and variety, but generally they fall between late April and the end of May. 

READ ALSO: Critical factors in growing malting barley

“Seeding early is important if you want to maximize yield,” Hector says, but adds that the timing of seeding also impacts qualities such as protein levels and kernel uniformity and plumpness, which are important to malting companies. 

According to the CMBTC, North American brewers prefer protein levels between 10 and 11.5 per cent, while Chinese brewers accept slightly higher levels, up to 13 per cent. 

Seeding rates 

Hector says the recommended target plant population for malting barley is 22 to 25 plants per square foot. He points to research done by now-retired AAFC crop scientist John O’Donovan that showed that as seeding rate increased, kernel plumpness and protein concentration decreased. 

“They found that 300 seeds per metre squared was the optimum seeding rate for yield and malt quality,” Hector says. 

Nutrient levels 

A 2022 fertilizer use survey showed that nearly all malt barley growers applied nitrogen, typically as urea or anhydrous ammonia. 

When making nitrogen rate decisions for malt barley, growers should consult with their agronomists to ensure they’re getting the levels right. The CMBTC recommends soil testing to check nutrient levels. 

“There is a balancing act to determining how much nitrogen you should apply,” Hector says. “You need it to reach optimum yield, but excessive nitrogen risks higher than optimum protein levels.” 

Diseases 

The main diseases barley growers must contend with are scald, fusarium head blight and spot blotch. Disease levels depend on geography. Variety disease packages and cultural control methods can help, but at one point or another, a fungicide application could be necessary, and the proper timing of that application is critical. 

“Barley is a little different than wheat in terms of flower timing,” Hector explains. “The label recommendation is typically between 70 and 100 per cent of heads fully emerged on the main stem to three days post head emergence.” 

But Hector warns that heads that haven’t emerged will not have made contact with the fungicide and won’t have the coverage. So, he recommended trying to get as close to 100 per cent of heads emerged as possible. 

Crop protection products 

Malting barley has very strict standards when it comes to residue from crop protection products. Growers should check with the KeepItClean.ca campaign’s annual Product Advisory to ensure they don’t encounter market access issues when selling their grain. 

Products restricted for malt barley include the fungicides fluopyram and tetraconazole, the plant growth regulator chlormequat, and the herbicides glyphosate and saflufenacil. 

The post Fitting malting barley in your rotation appeared first on Grainews.

The project’s origins can be traced to the extremely dry year of 2021, which left many producers in the province’s eastern Lakeland region in need of feed and water resources. Canola crops withered, yielding as little as 30 per cent of normal, and overgrazed pastures produced less in the following year.

Many livestock producers turned to novel feeds and grazing annuals in 2021 when drought withered pastures and normal forage sources failed to produce.

Winter cereals sown in fall have proven their value in providing early-season grazing in spring. But that comes with a catch: the crops move into reproductive stage relatively soon, so quality and production decline beyond July.

Early spring-seeded winter cereals remain in the vegetative stage throughout the summer and fall, improving biomass, maintaining nutritional quality and creating more chances for grazing, Alyssa Krawchuk of the Lakeland Agricultural Research Association (LARA) wrote in an email.

These grazing opportunities can begin in early June and extend into September.

Having more grazing periods in a growing season is just the start. An additional harvest opportunity and forage quality improvement were two more highlights of the early-seeding approach.

Early seeding also resulted in greater biomass production, which Krawchuk says could make or break an operation during dry or drought conditions when feed sources are scarce. Having that extra biomass can give perennial pastures the chance to rest and regenerate, reducing the need for producers to buy dry feed or rent other pastures.

“The year after a drought, this could be used as a method to defer grazing on drought-stressed pastures until later in the grazing season and provide more rest for these pastures throughout the summer.”

Early winter wheat seeding also seems to increase crude protein levels in feed compared to regularly-timed counterparts. The tactic can create more grazing days and reduce production costs while maintaining adequate feed quality and quantity.

“Furthermore, by seeding early, the winter cereals can take advantage of any early growing season moisture that might occur before regular seeding dates,” Krawchuk says.

“In addition, seeding cereals early in the spring allows for capture of early-season moisture through snow melt that may not be available in dry and drought conditions later in May when cereals are normally seeded.”

The research project took place at the LARA Fort Kent research site, southwest of Cold Lake in the Municipal District of Bonnyville. The “ultra-early” seeding date was April 29, 2022, in a soil temperature of 2 C. The regular seeding date was May 27, 2022, more or less within the normal seeding schedule for the region, in a 12 C soil temperature.

Wheat was harvested when each variety was an average of 30 centimetres high and cut to two inches. Regrowth was harvested throughout the summer and fall once it reached 30 cm.

Due to dry soil conditions at the time, varieties of winter cereals were seeded to a depth of 1.5 inches. Six treatments included two varieties of winter triticale (Metzger and Luoma) and two each of winter wheat (Pintale and Wildfire) and fall rye (Prima and Hazlet). Plots were 1.15 metres wide by 7.5 metres long with a minimum harvested area of six square metres.

There was little difference in first harvest timing between the two treatments. Both were between seven and eight weeks after planting. Early-seeded regrowth was harvested in three weeks. The third harvest occurred seven weeks later, with regular-seeded regrowth harvested seven weeks after the first harvest.

The early-seeded treatment produced more total yield than the regular-seeded treatment. Hazlet fall rye and Luoma winter triticale were the top-yielding varieties. The former produced about 0.67 tonnes per acre of dry matter forage yield whether seeded in the early and regular categories.

The lowest-yielding cereal was Metzger winter triticale with about 0.32 tonnes per acre of forage yield with the early-seeded treatment and just a little higher with the regularly timed seeding.

Although there was some difference in crude protein among varieties, the early-seeded cereals sported higher crude protein and the first harvest had higher crude protein than the subsequent harvest.

Wildfire winter wheat, for example, produced 28.25 per cent crude protein in the early-seeded set while the same variety scored 24.74 per cent with the regularly-seeded treatment.

The number of total digestible nutrients was much higher in the first harvest than those thereafter. However, they did not differ by variety or seeding date.

‘No. 1 question’

There are risks to planting cereals so early, but they may not be the ones producers first think of, Krawchuk says.

“Frost tends to be the No. 1 question when proposing early-seeded cereals to local producers. However, cereal crops have been shown to withstand temperatures as low as -8 C for a short period without detrimental impacts on growth and productivity.”

A bigger challenge when seeding winter cereals in low soil temperatures is the capacity of fields to hold the weight of seeding equipment.

“This is heavily dependent on soil type and moisture, which tends to be more of an issue the further north you go in Alberta where more clay type soils dominate.”

Although the 2022 project was intended to develop guidance for cereal producers in northeastern Alberta, LARA plans to take this show on the road.

With new funding from Results Driven Agriculture Research hopefully in hand, Krawchuk and her team plan to expand the trial to Oyen, Fairview and Fort Vermilion.

“We feel it is imperative to run this trial in different eco-regions of the province as varying agroclimatic conditions will have an impact on the biomass produced and the number of harvests achieved.”

The basic concept of the pending projects will remain the same — with some differences.

“The trial now includes three varieties of each winter wheat, winter triticale and fall rye and will be compared to an annual cereal commonly grown for feed. In addition, we will be working with economist Kathy Larson from the University of Saskatchewan to provide producers with a cost-benefit analysis for the project.”

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But like most things in farming, a lot depends on the weather. Less nitrogen equalled more profits in trials done in 2023 because it was a dry growing season.

“When you are reducing your nitrogen rates… by 15 per cent, we did find it was economical to have those reductions,” said Jessica Enns, research manager with the Western Applied Research Corporation, which is part of the Saskatchewan Agri-ARM network.

The network has a mandate to transfer technology from research to farmers and evaluate the economics of technology.

In 2023, researchers from the East Central Research Foundation at Yorkton led a project looking at oat profitability at four locations in Saskatchewan: Outlook, Melfort, Prince Albert and Yorkton. The trial at Outlook was irrigated, while the others were not.

The research project was supported by SaskOats, which wanted trial data on reducing rates of nitrogen fertilizer by 15 and 30 per cent and what that means for profitability.

Most oat growers apply about 90 pounds per acre of nitrogen fertilizer to the crop annually, Enns said.

That delivers about 120 lbs. to the crop, assuming the soil contains 30 lb. of residual nitrogen.

Over the last few years, there’s been more discussion about cutting the amount of nitrogen per acre because the federal government has set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer by 30 per cent by 2030.

That target was one reason for the SaskOats project: to understand the implications of reducing nitrogen rates on oats.

Unfortunately, 2023 was an abnormal growing season in Saskatchewan, so the results were a bit wonky. One of the trial sites, in Melfort, normally receives 228 millimetres of moisture from May to the end of August.

In 2023, 124 mm of precipitation was recorded.

“It was a very dry year … so we didn’t see a huge response to nitrogen,” Enns said.

The economic analysis was based on a price of oats of $5.25 per bushel and a fertilizer cost of 82 cents per pound of nitrogen.

Using those numbers, the researchers found:

• Cutting nitrogen by 15 per cent at the dryland sites increased net revenue by $17-$28 per acre, depending on the evaluation method.
• At Outlook, revenue jumped by $4-$9 per acre.

“In conclusion, reducing 125 lbs. (soil + fertilizer N) by 15 per cent was economical at all sites under the conditions of this study,” the research report says.

However, the results also showed cutting nitrogen rates by 30 per cent was not beneficial at Outlook.

“(It) reduced net returns by about $20 per acre at the high-yielding Outlook site.”

The results suggest growers could cut fertilizer rates and possibly increase profits if they know the growing season will be drier than normal.

However, it’s difficult to predict the growing conditions for a particular year.

“There isn’t a farmer out there that wouldn’t want to reduce their costs and make more money,” Enns said.

“There is a lot of research going into… where can we find those cost savings. Is it varietal-specific? Is it region-specific?”

Decisions around rates of fertilizer often boil down to risk management.

If prices for a particular crop are high, a grower might be reluctant to cut rates. No one wants to compromise yield and profits because the crop ran out of nitrogen.

“If you receive quite a bit of moisture, then you’re missing out on $20-$30 per acre (or more).”

Enns will present the full results of the Oats N Response study at the Prairie Oat Growers Association annual general meeting and conference, scheduled for Dec. 4 in Banff.

The post Cutting N on oats can pay off, if it’s drier appeared first on Grainews.

Please note the following list includes only brand-new variety releases for 2025.

READ MORE: New tools could speed up development of cereal varieties

Alliance Seed

CWRS: CDC Envy is an early-maturity, semi-dwarf spring wheat with high yield potential, yielding 14 per cent more than the check cultivar average in the 2018-2020 Parkland Cooperative Wheat Trials. CDC Envy offers good lodging resistance as well as excellent protection against sprouting. It also delivers reliable disease defence, with intermediate tolerance to fusarium head blight (FHB) and stem rust, moderate resistance to stripe rust and resistance to leaf rust.

Canterra Seeds

Barley: AAC Lariat is a two-row feed barley with very high yield potential, yielding four per cent more on average than CDC Austenson. This variety has short strong straw and excellent standability and produces plumper seeds and higher test weight compared to check varieties. AAC Lariat’s maturity and feed quality tested as good or better than check varieties and it has a good disease protection package as well, making it suitable for all feed barley-growing areas.

Triticale: TriCal Surge TM is an awnless forage spring triticale variety with excellent yield potential. TriCal Surge TM is suitable for all areas where forage crops are grown, and it provides excellent nutritional quality for dairy and beef rations. It has a shorter stature and very good straw strength and offers a good disease resistance package similar to existing commercial forage varieties.

FP Genetics

CWRS: AAC Darby is an awned, hollow-stemmed spring wheat offering high yields equal to AAC Viewfield and AAC Brandon. This midge-tolerant variety has very early maturity that is five days earlier than AC Carberry and one day earlier than Parata, and it also features good protein similar to AC Carberry. AAC Darby has good lodging resistance as well as a solid disease resistance package that includes a resistant rating for leaf rust and stripe rust, a moderately resistant rating for stem rust and an intermediate rating for FHB.

Oat: CDC Anson is a white milling oat with very short plant height and very good lodging resistance and standability. It has excellent milling characteristics that include high plump percentages, low thins, excellent groat percentage, high beta-glucan content and total dietary fibre content. CDC Anson also offers excellent yield potential, yielding four per cent more that AC Morgan and three per cent more than CS Camden.

Proven Seed

CWRS: CDC Imbue CL is the newest Clearfield Plus wheat in the Proven Seed portfolio. This earlier-maturing, semi-dwarf variety has a compact plant height and offers increased yield and protein compared to other Clearfield lines. CDC Imbue CL also features a solid defensive package that includes a resistant rating for leaf rust and stripe rust and a moderately-resistant rating for FHB.

CPSR: AAC Camrose VB is a midge-tolerant variety that is the highest yielding wheat across the Proven Seed portfolio. It has excellent standability as well as an excellent disease protection package, with a resistant rating for stem rust, leaf rust, stripe rust, loose smut and bunt.

SeCan

CWRS: AAC Spike is an exceptionally short-strawed red spring wheat with an earlier maturity than AAC Brandon. It has an excellent disease protection package, with a resistant rating for leaf rust, stem rust and stripe rust and a moderately resistant rating for FHB. AAC Spike also has good resistance to sprouting and is well suited for areas where straw management is a concern.

CPSR: AAC Westlock is a variety well suited to the traditional CPSR wheat-growing areas in central Alberta. It has high yield potential, yielding eight per cent more than AAC Brandon and five per cent more than AAC Penhold. AAC Westlock features a moderately-resistant rating for FHB and a resistant rating for leaf rust, stem rust and stripe rust. It also has good resistance to sprouting.

CWSP: Alotta is a red-seeded wheat suitable for feed, forage or ethanol. This variety has exceptionally high yield potential, yielding 27 per cent more than AAC Brandon on average. Alotta is rated moderately susceptible to FHB, but is rated as resistant to leaf rust, stem rust and stripe rust. It also has a very good rating for lodging.

CWRW: AAC Overdrive is an early-maturing red winter wheat well suited to all growing areas in Western Canada. Maturing five days earlier than AAC Wildfire, AAC Overdrive has an excellent disease defence package, with a moderately-resistant rating for FHB and leaf rust and a resistant rating for stripe rust and stem rust.

Barley: CDC Durango is a two-row feed barley with very good lodging resistance, strong straw and high yield potential. This variety has four per cent more yield compared to CDC Austenson and has 12 per cent more yield and is five centimetres shorter than CDC Copeland.

Oat: ORe BOOST is a forage oat with improved tonnage and quality compared to CDC Haymaker. It is also shorter and has stronger straw than CDC Haymaker, which makes for an easier harvest. It is a late-maturing variety, which provides a wider forage harvest window as well.

ORe BOOST has an upright leaf structure that promotes leaf retention and aids in compatibility with other species in forage blends. It is rated as susceptible to both leaf and stem rust.

It will also carry a Variety Use Agreement (VUA), with royalties going back to plant breeder Jim Dyck at Oat Advantage to support future breeding efforts in feed/forage oats.

The post New cereals on deck for 2025 appeared first on Grainews.

Barley and oats are grown primarily in the cooler regions of the Prairies and will benefit from a longer growing season. Durum, meanwhile, is primarily grown in the southern Prairies and growers will be more concerned about increased temperatures during that region’s growing season. Spring wheat, grown all across the Prairie region, will benefit from the extended growing season in northern regions. Winter wheat production may be challenged by a lack of protective snow cover in the winter. All these factors will need to be examined in looking at the impact of climate change on cereals.

Many studies have examined changes to the climate in Western Canada over the past couple of decades. A review of the research on climate change in the agricultural growing regions in Canada was conducted by Mapfumo et al. in the Canadian Journal in Plant Science in 2023. The authors examined the research to date of the parameters that are important to producing crops.

Of the factors examined in the review, the three most critical parameters for cereal production are growing season precipitation; growing season length; and air temperatures during the growing season. The research indicates changes in all three parameters have occurred over the past 100 years.

Every farmer knows precipitation is the critical element for producing crops on the Prairies. The weather during the past two growing seasons certainly proves the point that “rain makes grain.” Research indicates growing season precipitation has increased since 1900. In Alberta’s agricultural region, it has increased by 18 mm over the period beginning in 1900. In another study, Prairie rainfall was found to have increased by 39.2 mm over the growing season in the period from 1956 to 1995. The increase in precipitation is welcome news for cereal crop production in the coming years. Wheat, barley, oats and durum will benefit from additional moisture in the growing season.

An increase in moisture during the growing season, though, would increase disease pressure in cereal crops. Common cereal crop diseases will be enhanced by the increased moisture. Insect pressure should also increase under warmer, wetter growing conditions and increased temperatures.

Growing season length is the second most critical factor in producing crops in Western Canada. This is particularly true for wheat crops, but barley and oats will also see yield increases from an extended growing season. The northern growing regions will see the largest benefit of a longer growing season. Western Canada has seen its growing season increase by between three and 12 days, using data from 1920 to 2020. Frost dates have also changed in Western Canada, with the median spring frost earlier by 11.1 days and fall frost dates later by 9.4 days. A longer growing season also adds yield potential for cereal crops. The extension of the frost dates in the fall should also improve crop quality. This would be critical for barley and oat crops grown in the northern grain belt but would also benefit wheat crops in the north.

The heat experienced over the past two growing seasons has certainly brought temperatures to the forefront, in terms of risk to crops. The maximum air temperatures have been increasing by between 2.4 and 3.6 C during the period from 1950 to 2010. The increase in maximum temperatures is probably the largest concern for cereal production in the future. Although the temperatures during the growing season are expected to be higher than current levels, wheat, barley and oat crops grown in northern regions should not see significant yield reductions. Heat will be of more concern for southern wheat and durum crops, which could see more significant yield reductions from the increase in maximum temperatures.

Winter wheat production will be impacted by reductions in snow cover and snow depth in the future. Western Canada has seen a decrease of 30.7 cm of annual snowfall from 1951 to 2004. Snow depth was also lowered by four cm from 1948 to 2012. Winter wheat production on the Prairies is dependent on snow cover to protect crops from winterkill. Ironically, a warmer climate may result in increased winterkill potential.

In conclusion: climate change is expected to have a mostly positive impact on cereal production in Western Canada during the coming years. The net benefit of increased moisture and longer growing season will more than offset any negative impacts from increased disease and insect pressure. Grain quality is likely to improve in northern growing areas where the risk of frost is expected to decrease.

The post Payoffs and pressures for cereals in a changing Prairie climate appeared first on Grainews.

Francois Eudes is the director of research, development and technology for the science and technology branch at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) at Lethbridge. As part of his role, he oversees AAFC’s breeding, innovation and crop germplasm development.

Eudes says a big part of the multigenerational approach to breeding new varieties of cereal crops such as wheat and barley is eliminating offspring that won’t perform at sufficiently high levels.

“The selection process is much more about the elimination of poor genetics among the sister lines. We’re going to eliminate the poor-performing one under selection for some traits and move the better one to the next generation where another selection is going to be done,” he says.

The development of new cereal crop varieties is unique in comparison to most other crop types. Most of the crop breeding efforts in Western Canada are conducted by the public sector. That includes AAFC as well as post-secondary institutions such as the University of Saskatchewan, through its Crop Development Centre (CDC), the University of Alberta and the University of Saskatchewan.

In most cases, those institutions don’t directly commercialize the varieties they develop. Instead, they partner with stakeholders such as seed companies to commercialize those varieties through variety licensing agreements.

Curtis Pozniak, a professor and director of the CDC at the U of S, says it takes, on average, eight to 10 years to develop a new variety, which means breeders need to “have a bit of a crystal ball” when determining what the priorities need to be for future varieties.

The main areas of focus for breeders are typically yield and reliable yield performance in a range of different environments and soil types; disease and insect resistance; and tolerance to abiotic stresses such as drought and heat.

Marketability is another important consideration when developing new varieties of cereal crops, Pozniak adds.

“If you look at barley used in brewing, there’s a very specific quality profile that’s in demand by the industry and by the end-use customer. Likewise with wheat and durum, the quality profiles are very well defined in terms of what our customers are looking for,” he says.

“It’s all about developing the package of yield, reliability and marketability that’s most important, really pushing the yield envelope and having that combination of agronomic traits and pest-resistant traits that growers are demanding, while still maintaining that marketability and end-use quality.”

Like most crops, cereals have had to endure a wide range of severe weather conditions across Canada in the last several years, including drought and extended periods of extreme heat.

While that has been an important consideration when it comes to breeding efforts in cereals, it is not an entirely new breeding target. Pozniak says plant breeders have historically tested new cereal varieties in a wide range of conditions in order to select products that will perform well across a range of environments, and that continues to be the case.

“I wouldn’t say we’re necessarily focusing more on selecting for heat and drought tolerance. That has always been a breeding target, but the extreme heat and drought like we experienced this past summer have really provided us with the opportunity to evaluate those genetic combinations that do well,” he says.

Ellen Sparry, general manager of C&M Seeds at Palmerston, Ont., agrees. She recently came across a paper from the Canadian Journal of Research from 1936 referring to studies on drought resistance in spring wheat.

“It is always on a breeder’s radar to try and select the right varieties that combat drought and other climate challenges. That’s why we test varieties over several years before taking anything to commercialization,” she says.

That said, breeders are having to look at things in a slightly different, climate-induced light, she adds.

For example, changing climates have forced plant breeders to respond to shifts in disease. Sparry cited an example of a winter wheat her company developed that was wiped out in a single year due to leaf rust.

“It had good tolerance and then we had a shift one year and it was all but wiped out of the marketplace,” she says.

Eudes agrees climate change and extreme weather conditions are prompting plant breeders to look at some things in a new light. For crops such as wheat, he says that includes looking at varieties that have been grown in other countries to deal with even hotter and drier conditions and adapting that germplasm so those varieties can be successful here in Canada.

‘Nimble’

Plant breeding has traditionally been a marathon rather than a sprint, but some new tools have the potential to change that.

Gene editing technology has been around for some time but it’s still a relatively new concept in terms of Canadian agriculture. AAFC seeded the federal government’s first plots of gene-edited wheat in Lethbridge earlier this year.

Sparry says gene editing has the potential to be a game-changer when it comes to breeding new varieties of wheat and other cereal crops.

“I think it’s always on a breeder’s mind that they have to be nimble, which is not an easy thing to do in a breeding program,” she says. “Perhaps gene editing can get us there a little quicker. Hopefully, this is a goal that allows breeders to adapt a little bit quicker to changing situations.”

Tyler Groeneveld concurs. Groeneveld is the North American director of grains and oils for Corteva Agriscience. The company spends $4 million a day on research and development and, he says, a tool like gene editing has the potential to unlock a host of new opportunities.

“The advent of gene editing and our expertise with that particular modern plant breeding tool means that we’ll be able to identify and commercialize traits of interest and seed technology quicker than we would in the traditional biotechnology route to market,” he says.

Another relatively new tool that could help plant breeding efforts is phenomic selection. It’s a low-cost, high-throughput alternative to the use of genetic markers, employing spectral data to predict complex traits with statistical models that use software algorithms.

Eudes says phenomic technology is still relatively new here in Canada but has been in use in Europe for more than a decade already. In one example of its use, multiple data sets could be collected via drones to monitor a crop and predict its performance even before that crop has reached maturity.

“That way, a decision could be made earlier, either to continue the evaluation of the line or essentially eliminate that line,” he explains.

‘Diversification’

As these new tools and technologies continue to evolve, new varieties of cereal crops are being introduced into the developmental pipeline.

Earlier this year Corteva introduced its new Trusource wheat. Trusource is a high-fibre durum wheat that provides increased dietary fibre in everyday foods such as pasta. It’s currently available to food companies for trial in product development and will be released commercially to farmers sometime in the next few years.

“Trusource wheat will bring new nutritional innovation to wheat and … benefits compared to traditional wheat. It supports improved gut health and blood sugar management. It helps promote satiety (fullness),” Groeneveld says.

“It’s a very exciting opportunity when we look at market diversification and increase in value for a crop that Canada is known for — being a very high quality, reliable supplier in durum to the global market.”

AAFC is expected to announce its next set of co-op trials and which lines it will register following the Prairie Grain Development Committee’s meeting in February.

Eudes says one of the most promising cereal crops AAFC has in its developmental pipeline is a durum wheat that was developed in Swift Current. It has been shown to have intermediate resistance to fusarium head blight (FHB) — the first durum wheat in Canada to be so rated. It was registered in February 2023 and should be available to farmers within the next two years.

In addition, AAFC breeders are working on a new higher-performing variety of milling oat as a replacement for AC Morgan which, Eudes says, is getting “a bit old,” having been around since 1999.

The post New tools could speed up development of cereal varieties appeared first on Grainews.

The problem is, those premiums don’t come easily.

Shawn Pasieczka, a food safety grain specialist with Richardson, is the arbiter of what makes the cut and what doesn’t, and ultimately whether a farmer is sitting on $1 million of malt barley or $600,000 of feed. He recently explained the factors influencing barley selection to a group of farmers at the Canadian Malt Barley Technical Centre’s (CMBTC) Producer Malt Academy, held in Winnipeg.

Accurate samples

Pasieczka emphasized the most important step a farmer can take is ensuring the submitted sample accurately represents the entire crop.

“We need to know what that whole field looks like,” he says. “I’m looking at one kilogram to make a million-dollar deal, so that sample you give me better be what you’re actually going to deliver.”

Also, if the grain sits for an extended period, it can degrade, so he cautions farmers to re-sample the bin every six to eight weeks. If a sample meets the specifications in late summer but a load’s not delivered until the following spring, a lot can go wrong.

“Somewhere along the way, it heated, got bugs in it, or the germ dropped off,” he says. “We want to see that so we know for ourselves that you still have the malt that you said you had for us.”

Storage and handling

When storing grain, obviously you want to keep it dry. Once it gets wet, there is a risk of heating.

“The No. 1 thing when you harvest malt is to cool it down as quickly as you possibly can,” Pasieczka says. “If you can, we always recommend putting your malt on aeration.”

More generally, he says, it’s important to ensure the grain is protected from the elements.

“If you’ve got risk of any kind; if there’s spoilage, if bugs are getting in there, if we see anything like that, you’re going to be rejected,” Pasieczka warned. “If you tell me you’ve got a pile of barley in the field, it’s not malt; it’s feed. You’re going to have rabbits and goats and everything in there. Malt can’t have any excreta in it.”

Varietal purity

Different varieties will malt differently and produce different enzymes, so brewers demand variety purity, to ensure consistency for their products.

Richardson requests a minimum of 95 per cent purity — and tests for it, Pasieczka says.

“We will do a little bit of blending. So if you’re off by one or two per cent we’ll blend if we can, but anything lower than 92 per cent we’re automatically rejecting,” he says. “This is because we are selling it with a guarantee. The end users are saying we must have 95 per cent pure.”

While it is possible to re-grow your own seed, Pasieczka notes some companies require certified seed. Richardson doesn’t require certified seed, and neither do other big grain companies such as Viterra and Cargill — but for growers who use their own seed, he suggests retesting to ensure the purity is still there.

Germination

Germination is a critical part of the malting process because it activates enzymes that convert starches into fermentable sugars, which are crucial for fermentation and flavour development.

A simple test is done to determine whether a sample is viable. In a lab, 100 seeds are placed in a petri dish with four millilitres of water and kept at a constant temperature and high humidity. After three days, the germinated seeds are counted, and the number of seeds that germinate determines the viability of the sample.

Pasieczka says they test every sample that comes in, and anything lower than 95 per cent will likely be rejected. He warns this number can degrade over time.

“If you show me a sample in August at 95 per cent, you had better be hauling that in tomorrow, because it’s already dying,” he says. “By Christmas, it’s going to be 92, and by May, it’s going to be 90. It’s never going to come back to life.”

Protein

Protein in malting barley plays an important role in brewing because it supports enzyme production, flavour development and foam stability.

“If you have low protein, you don’t have enough nutrients to keep your yeast alive,” Pasieczka explains. “If you have high protein, you’re getting into issues with haze.”

Haze is caused by the presence of insoluble particles, affecting the beer’s clarity.

Pasieczka says the ideal range for protein is 10 to 12 per cent for domestic markets and 12-13.5 per cent for export markets.

“When we export to China, they’re blending it with a lot of Australian barley, which is typically down into like the nines and 10s. So they’re throwing the two together.”

While varietal genetics can play a role in protein levels, Pasieczka notes environmental factors have a much bigger impact on protein levels.

“If the barley is struggling, it’s going to tend to have higher protein,” he explains. “If you dump a pile of fertilizer on it and there’s not enough moisture to grow a proper crop, it’s going to turn that fertilizer into protein.”

Plumpness

Plumpness is important for malting barley because larger, fuller kernels typically contain more starch, which leads to higher malt extract yield and more efficient malting.

Pasieczka says the expectation for plumpness is 85 per cent. That number is determined by passing the grain through a standardized sieve. The grade is determined as a percentage of grain that either does not pass through the sieve or is lodged in the holes.

As with protein levels, genetics take a back seat to environment.

“This is something that, as a producer, you can’t control. If you didn’t get rain, you’re probably not going to have very plump barley,” said Pasieczka. “There’s a little bit of genetics involved. Some varieties definitely are plumper than others, but it’s a Mother Nature thing. There’s not much you can do about it.”

Moisture

Moisture content is crucial when selecting malting barley because too much moisture can promote mould growth and spoilage, while too little moisture can hinder germination and enzyme activation.

Pasieczka says the industry expects moisture levels in the 10-13.5 per cent range, because end users store grain in 5,000-tonne silos and want it dry before they get it, so it doesn’t spoil.

“A lot of guys don’t harvest at 13.5. They’re harvesting a little bit higher than that, just so the kernel is not as brittle coming up,” he says. “Grain that is too dry will result in more peeled and broken kernels.”

Peeled and broken kernels are a concern because they absorb moisture more quickly. The germ may still grow, but it could grow faster than everything else.

It’s fairly easy to bring 15-16 per cent moisture down to 13.5 per cent, he says, but advises that if it’s harvested much higher than that, the grower definitely needs to dry it.

“You don’t want to dry barley. It is very, very tricky to dry,” he warns. “If you overdry your barley, you’re killing the germ. Once you kill that germ, you’ve got feed barley.”

Chitting

Chitted barley has begun germinating prematurely, which can interfere with the controlled malting process.

Chitting happens when barley in the field matures and is ready to combine but then experiences a couple of days of heavy moisture. Pasieczka says Richardson will tolerate a certain level of chitting.

“We’re looking at maybe two per cent, depending on the germ,” he said. “But that two per cent is not locked in.”

Disease and herbicides

Staining is an indication of fungal loads or moulds in your crop, such as blight. Pasieczka says it’s usually not a big issue, but it causes the hull to get very thick and woody, so it absorbs moisture differently, which could lead to different germination rates. In years where the disease load is high, samples could be rejected based on staining alone.

However, a fusarium infection that produces detectable levels of DON (deoxynivalenol) raises a red flag for malt buyers. When you open a beer and it overflows slowly (not explosively, like when a beer is shaken), it is often because the beer contains DON. Barley will be rejected if DON is detected at levels above 0.5 ppm.

Ergot is another toxin that could cause barley to be rejected. China, the destination for a large portion of the barley Richardson buys, has extremely low tolerance for ergot.

“It’s not an every-year thing, and it’s usually pocketed,” Pasieczka says. “This year was very good for ergot, but two years ago, we had it everywhere.”

Glyphosate

There is essentially zero tolerance for residual glyphosate in malting barley.

“There is no pre-harvest burndown allowed, and we do test for it,” Pasieczka says. “It’s in your contracts when you sign them. There is no tolerance for glyphosate use at all.”

Every year is different

There is no single factor that is the source for the bulk of rejections of malt barley, Pasieczka says, but certain environmental conditions mean certain problems rise to the top.

“Last year we had a lot of rain at harvest. So we had a monster amount of chitting,” he says. “This year, we had no moisture in pretty much all of July. So this year we had very thin kernels.”

Ultimately, to secure the premiums malt barley can offer — now roughly $1.25 per bushel, he says — a farmer has to take control over the things within their power and otherwise hope for good luck.

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Corteva Agriscience in mid-November said it’s made a “revolutionary breakthrough” with which it expects to produce hybrid hard red winter wheat for the North American market “as early as 2027” and add other hybrid wheats to the product line over time.

The U.S. company sounds quite upbeat about the performance of its “first-of-its kind, proprietary non-GMO hybrid technology.” It notes its internal yield trial testing shows a 10 per cent increase in yield potential “while using the same amount of land and resources” and yields roughly 20 per cent higher than current “elite” varieties in “water-stressed environments.”

(Those trials, Corteva says, were run at six to 10 locations per year over two years, with hard red winter wheat testing done in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado.)

Of course, a lot of unknowns still swirl around this announcement. Will this wheat, or one like it, be available to Canadian growers? Corteva has since told us it anticipates introducing the product to the Canadian market at some point but doesn’t yet have a hard timeline for it. It also says it plans to also bring this technology to the hard red spring class by decade’s end.

Also: how will this differ from hybrids other companies have in the pipeline? We’re still waiting to hear more, though we know the answer will be different from just a few years ago, when several players appeared to be racing to get hybrid wheats to market.

From Prairie wheat growers’ perspective, the most significant of those was Bayer, which in the mid-2010s set up a breeding station and trial acreage near Pike Lake, south of Saskatoon, devoted to hybrid wheat. But in 2018 Bayer, needing antitrust approvals for its takeover of Monsanto, sold that shop among others to BASF — which in turn walked away from North American hybrid wheat development in 2023, saying its trials “have not achieved the development goals we set to meet the needs of growers in Canada and the United States” and that it would instead focus its work on European markets.

Syngenta, working on its own hybrid wheats since 2010, rolled out a few thousand acres’ worth of hybrid HRS wheat seed for U.S. growers in 2023 under the brand name AgriPro. It also expects its products to show a 10-12 per cent bump in yield potential compared to current wheats — and that it will produce other hybrid HRS and HRW wheats for the U.S. market within the next few years.

The company, however, also walked away from hybrid wheat development for the Canadian market in 2018, and says it has no plans to bring its new U.S. wheats up here either. “The products continuing to come through the pipeline are not a fit for the industry standards that Canada has today,” a Syngenta rep told the Western Producer in 2023.

Past all that is the big question: cost. As Jim Timlick notes elsewhere in these pages, Corteva alone spends $4 million per day on R+D and needs to recoup such investment from somebody. If its new wheats are ultimately a fit for the Prairie market, that somebody is you.

Setting that price point is the challenge facing Corteva and others. Whatever they ultimately charge growers for this achievement, is a 10 per cent boost in yield potential — 20, in a dry year — going to pencil out for growers who put down cash for this product?

It’s a question the seed companies need to consider carefully — because along with the big breakthroughs come the bills for all the work that didn’t pan out. And while a lot of those expenses are deductible down the road, the bills have still gotta be paid.

The post Editor’s Rant: The price tag on progress appeared first on Grainews.

Extinguish XL, launched in mid-March, is billed as a “pre-formulated, all-in-one application that delivers control of tough weeds like cleavers, dandelion, round-leaved mallow, stork’s-bill and narrow leaved hawk’s beard across variable climatic conditions.”

Corteva’s Jason Smith says the product offers up “a unique combination of Group 4 and Group 2 actives to assist farmers with yield-robbing weeds, including Group 2-resistant cleavers, chickweed and volunteer canola.”

The formulation’s actives are halauxifen and 2,4-D (both Group 4) along with florasulam (Group 2). Corteva said it plans to have Extinguish available at “select retail locations” ahead of this growing season.

Similarly, Adama Agricultural Solutions has rolled out four new formulated cereal broadleaf herbicides as part of its “All In” group of products: Forcefighter All In, Esteem All In, Rush 24 All In and Outshine All In.

“Each of these four new cereal broadleaf All In’s convert a traditional co-pack into a formulated product, resulting in more concentrated packaging and the option to add bulk options,” Ambrely Ralph, Adama Canada’s herbicide product manager, says in a release.

The formulations for Esteem, Forcefighter and Outshine all include the Group 4 actives fluroxypyr and MCPA ester, while Esteem also includes clopyralid (Group 4), Forcefighter adds bromoxynil (Group 6) and Outshine adds florasulam (Group 2). Rush 24, meanwhile, combines 2,4-D ester and fluroxypyr.

A separately announced member of the All In group, Brazen All In, has pinoxaden (Group 1) for grassy weed control in spring and winter wheat and barley.

The post Broadleaf herbicide formulations set for cereal crops appeared first on Grainews.

Cereal Aphid Manager helps farmers and crop advisors tackle aphid problems in fields by predicting what aphid populations will be in seven days and the best time to apply insecticide.

The app from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is based on a model that treats a grain field as an entire ecosystem by considering many complex biological interactions — including the impact of beneficial insects that help limit aphid populations.

Wist, an AAFC entomologist based in Saskatoon, applied for research funds to update the app in April through the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture’s funding call, where many grower groups that represent farmers participate in funding research.

According to Wist, the money is needed to help ensure Cereal Aphid Manager keeps up with newer technologies. The app, which came out in March 2018, can be used on Apple and Android platforms, but there have been numerous changes in these operating systems since then.

Wist says he knows several grower-funded research groups are interested in helping get the app back up to speed.

“This was built for an older version of Android, for example, so we’re at that point where we need to do a little bit of upgrading,” he says.

Wist hopes to improve Cereal Aphid Manager in several other areas too — including adding canary seed to the app’s list of crops.

He notes two primary cereal aphid pests on Prairie farms are also a problem in canary seed production. Wist and fellow AAFC research scientist Bill May have completed work on determining economic thresholds for controlling aphids in canary seed crops, which they’d like to see incorporated in an updated Cereal Aphid Manager app.

Wist also hopes to enhance an aspect of the app called the dynamic action threshold, which takes into account the pressure insect predators and parasitoids put on aphid populations.

In simple terms, an action threshold is that point where a pest problem is considered serious enough to warrant actions, like insecticide spraying, that can prevent the pest population from causing economic damage.

The dynamic action threshold in Cereal Aphid Manager factors in the number of different natural enemies of aphids that are present in a grain field and how many aphids they can eat or parasitize per day.

“If you’ve got enough predators and parasitoids in your field and they’re there early enough, they can stop an aphid infestation … and you might not have to get in there with your sprayer,” says Wist.

Wist notes there are new pictures and some recent research data on the voracity of aphid predators and parasitoids he’d like to add to the app to increase its effectiveness as a crop protection tool.

Prairie predators and parasitoids

Presenting at the CropConnect conference in Winnipeg in February, Wist shared photos, videos and information about some beneficial insect predators and parasitoids, not just in cereals but in other crops as well, that farmers could see this coming growing season.

READ MORE: Predators and parasitoids – your bug buddies in the field

This includes lady beetles, commonly referred to as lady bugs. This voracious insect will feast on aphids at both the larval and adult stages, making it “a really great predator” in Wist’s eyes.

Wist says there are numerous species of beneficial parasitic wasps in Prairie crop production. These kill pests by injecting them with eggs that produce larvae, which consume their insect hosts from the inside out.

While his research shows only one parasitic wasp species, Aphidius avenaphis, is a significant natural enemy of cereal aphids, Wist notes it can have a sizable impact.

A single female A. avenaphis wasp, for example, can kill up to 25 to 30 English grain aphids in one day, leaving “aphid mummies” with their offspring inside.

Smartphone tools such as Cereal Aphid Manager enable farmers to factor in insect predators and parasitoids in their spray decisions, but as Wist points out, there are other steps they can take to protect beneficial insects.

One is to provide shelterbelts and other areas where beneficial insects can flourish and also take refuge during the colder months. Undisturbed leaf litter at the base of a tree, for example, is the perfect home for lady beetles nestling in for the winter.

Wist says beneficial parasitic wasps feed on nectar, so seeding some areas within or around fields with flowering plant species gives them a place to eat and build up energy to attack aphids and other pests.

Some lady beetle species feed on pollen, he adds, so having flowering spaces around the farm will help sustain beetle populations.

For scouting tips and more information on practices that can help preserve important pest predators and parasitoids, Wist recommends farmers and crop advisors check out the Field Heroes website.

Wist maintains the Field Heroes campaign, launched by the Western Grains Research Foundation in 2017, has contributed a lot to increased farmer awareness of beneficial insects in cropping systems.

How Cereal Aphid Manager works

The Cereal Aphid Manager app, which can be downloaded from the Apple Store or Google Play, is a scouting tool to help grain producers determine whether an aphid population will grow large enough to pose a significant threat to crop production. Users can also access a French-language version at the touch of a button.

Users walk a certain path through a field, which is recommended by the app. It includes a minimum of five stops, at which users count the number of aphid and beneficial insects. To help them identify insects, Cereal Aphid Manager also includes a photo guide.

After completing the recommended path, the app will provide a prediction for whether to spray or not spray, or if and when the user should sample the field again. The recommendation, along with the survey date, is stored on the user’s device to keep track of a field’s aphid population over the course of a growing season.

According to AAFC, it’s important to note winds can spread cereal aphids from the northern United States onto farms in the Canadian Prairies — something Cereal Aphid Manager cannot predict. Because of this, farmers and crop advisors are urged to check their fields regularly during the growing season, regardless of what the app recommends.

The post Keeping aphids in check, online and off appeared first on Grainews.