Stephens sets the bar

By Sean Finnie

For 28 years the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service’s Western Wheat Quality Laboratory has conducted variety trials to determine the end-use quality of wheat cultivars and experimental lines developed by Pacific Northwest (PNW) wheat breeders. Over 6,000 samples from state variety testing programs in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho were screened from the 2023 crop year. These tests include grain, milling, flour, and baking evaluations, for a total of 25 tests per line. To assist growers in selecting which cultivars to plant, data generated from these tests are used to create the Preferred Wheat Variety Brochure. The brochure can be downloaded from the Washington Grain Commission website at wagrains.org. For a wheat cultivar to make it into the brochure, there needs to be data from 15 paired observations (against a check) over at least three crop years.

Examples of cultivars in the Preferred Wheat Variety Brochure that are encouraged for planting include the soft white winter cultivars Piranha CL+, LCS Shine, VI Voodoo CL+, Sockeye CL+, Nova AX, and UI Vixen; winter club cultivars Cameo, Castella, and ARS Crescent; hard red winter cultivar Scorpio; and soft white spring cultivars Tekoa, Ryan, Butch CL+, Louise, and Seahawk. Newer cultivars that are not yet in the brochure include the soft white winter cultivars LCS Hydra AX, LCS Scorpion AX, LCS Dagger AX, the hard red winter cultivar LCS Eclipse, and the soft white spring cultivar Bush.

For well over 20 years, the Western Wheat Quality Laboratory has used the soft white winter wheat variety Stephens as an end-use quality check for the Preferred Wheat Variety Brochure. Stephens was developed in 1965 through a cross between the French variety Nord Desprez and Pullman Selection 101 and was released in 1978.

For 38 years (1979-2009) Stephens was the number one wheat variety grown in Oregon and was widely planted throughout the PNW. Because of its longevity and broad adaptability, it is well suited to be a long-standing check in the Preferred Wheat Variety Brochure for wheat grown in Washington, Oregon, and North Idaho.

Progress in improving end-use quality in PNW wheat can be seen in Figure 1 above. This figure shows the percent of commercial wheat lines with better end-use quality than Stephens. This figure shows the percent of wheat cultivars grown that are above Stephens in overall quality attributes during the last 20 years. In 2003, 50% of the commercial wheat cultivars were better than Stephens in overall quality. Now, 20 years later, 80% of the commercial wheat cultivars rate better than Stephens in overall quality. The 30% increase over this period is an indication of the genetic improvement the region has achieved regarding overall quality. This is a clear indication that the dedication, focus, and funding towards wheat quality has been beneficial to the marketability of wheat produced in this region.