stories by MARLENE FRITZ
IN INDONESIA, the common person subsisting on $2 a day is choosing the street vendors’ wheat-based noodles over fried rice costing twice as much. So says Mark Samson, Singapore-based vice president for U.S. Wheat Associates, the wheat industry’s checkoff-funded (2 cents per bushel sold) market development organization.
In Vietnam, he notes, “There used to be zero outlets for bakery products in Ho Chi Minh City, and now there’s one on nearly every corner.”
Samson, who graduated from the University of Idaho in 1975 with a master’s in agricultural economics, says wheat imports are up steeply in south Asia, and Idaho’s wheat growers are well positioned to benefit.
By all accounts, 50 years of collaboration between the UI College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) and the Idaho Wheat Commission (IWC) deserves a generous share of the credit. That partnership has focused intense efforts towards developing top-quality, Idaho-adapted wheats in a range of market classes—wheats for noodles, pastries, and breads that meet diverse needs near and far. “Idaho wheats have done very well in the world market,” says Samson. “We’ve avoided wide swings in quality.”
At the IWC, Executive Director Blaine Jacobson says wheat is supplanting rice in Asia and corn in Latin America. He calls the UI CALS-IWC relationship a “win-win: the wheat growers are able to fund researchers through the wheat tax they pay, and the researchers are able to break new ground in a number of areas on behalf of the wheat growers.”
The IWC has even twice underwritten travel by CALS wheat breeders to the industry’s farflung marketplaces. When Robert Zemetra, Moscow-based soft white wheat breeder, visited Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines in 2002, he sat down with Asian millers and bakers to discuss the qualities they sought in Pacific Northwest wheats. “We have a better idea now of what we’re doing when we’re selecting and crossing,” he says.
Essential support for essential efforts
The IWC funds an average $400,000-plus annually in CALS research and extension; over the past 15 years, it has contributed another $1.1 million towards Ag Biotech Wing construction, greenhouse improvement, Idaho Wheat Quality Laboratory remodeling in Aberdeen, and farm and laboratory equipment purchases. Beyond variety improvement, it supports production and pest management research and UI Extension field trials, cereal schools, and publications.
In Moscow, weed scientist Donn Thill credits IWC support with his team’s ability to respond briskly to emerging problems. “We don’t write a proposal; we just go to work on it. That’s been a huge benefit to Idaho’s wheat growers.”
“With the slow erosion of agricultural research funds from the state and federal government, the importance of the wheat commission’s funds has increased over time,” says Zemetra. More than 90 percent of his breeding program’s operating expenses are paid by the IWC, including fuel to drive to his plots.
Indeed, the IWC is among CALS’ top 10 funding sources, according to Greg Bohach, director of the college’s Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station. “We have extremely good relationships with the IWC commissioners and administration,” he says. “We meet with them throughout the year to assess priorities and see what the university can do to address them.”
Payoff in triple yields, better varieties
At the IWC, Jacobson says the biggest payoff has been continually improving wheat genetics. Since 1959, Idaho wheat yields have nearly tripled; Jacobson attributes half of that progress to new varieties and the other half to new ways of managing them. CALS’ extensive variety trials, he notes, enable Idaho growers at 600 feet or 6,000 feet, and in dryland or irrigated conditions, to identify those new releases from the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station that are most likely to excel in their fields.
In Plummer, former IWC commissioner Sam Tyler remembers his frustration with severely lodged (randomly downed) tall, weak-strawed wheats before the three Pacific Northwest land-grant universities, including the University of Idaho, released Gaines soft white winter wheat in the early 1960s. “It was the breakthrough to the short-strawed, high-producing wheat that we now have, and it ballooned the production of wheat,” says Tyler.
According to Brad Brown, UI Extension crop management specialist in Parma, the higher- yielding semi-dwarf winter wheats prompted other changes as well. “With the increased potential for yield, you had an increased need for nitrogen, and that led to a more concerted effort to calibrate the soil test for nitrogen to wheat’s nitrogen requirements. The IWC was absolutely critical to that effort; we would never have done it without their support.”
Efforts by Zemetra’s predecessors Warren Pope and Donald Sunderman to develop wheats with resistance to stripe rust, dwarf bunt, snow mold, and other cereal diseases made such a difference that Zemetra says simply: “It allowed growers to have a crop rather than losing it.” During the past 50 years, wheat research has led to CALS releasing 65 varieties. CALS has also joined Washington State University, Oregon State University, and other states in the release of 25 more. Fully 25 have earned IWC’s “quality-plus” rating.
UI Foundation Seed Program’s role
Kathy Stewart-Williams, who manages CALS’ foundation seed program from Kimberly, calls it a “long and very steady progression. We’re trying to meet as many different grower needs as we can, and I think we’ve done that very well.” Three of the top five varieties planted in Idaho in 2008—Brundage, Alturas, and Madsen—were released or jointly released by CALS, as were such favorites for specific growing regions within Idaho as Lambert, Boundary, and Jefferson.
In Iona, Boyd Schwieder’s family has produced a wheat crop every year since 1915. Now, the former IWC commissioner and Idaho Grain Producers Association president grows primarily Brundage 96, a stripe rust-resistant enhancement of Brundage. “It’s just really easy to raise,” he says. According to Schwieder, CALS’ varieties have “definitely” improved growers’ profits—largely because their high flour yields and adaptability to multiple end products make them “very easy to sell.”
Zemetra considers Brundage and Brundage 96 among his career milestones, along with Simon, his first strawbreaker foot rot-resistant line. The Brundage duo “combined high end-use quality with high yield potential and helped expand domestic demand for Idaho wheat.”
A long-term relationship for challenges
“It really is a team effort,” says Bohach of CALS’ contributions to the wheat industry. “Everybody works together: it takes the breeders, agronomists, entomologists, virologists, weed scientists, economists, and extension educators. And it takes the overall support of the industry. Over time, the issues will change. Our relationship allows us to be both proactive and reactive to emerging challenges.”
“All research is long-term,” adds Pat Dailey, IWC director of programs. “Nothing is really short-term.”
Fifty years and counting.
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