In late 2018, the Agri-Arm group devised a study to compare the quality and performance of certified wheat seed against farm-saved seed (FSS). Farm-saved seed is the producer’s own seed which they clean and use as a seed source for their own farm, because it is cheaper than buying certified seed. Historically, the majority of wheat acres in western Canada are seeded with FSS. Producers will typically introduce better genetics by purchasing certified seed and then use FSS after that for a few years. SaskWheat wanted to know if this was a best practice or whether certified seed should be used more often because it may be better quality, more productive seed. A fair comparison between certified and FSS would require the generation of a lot of data. To this end, the project involved all 8 Agri-Arm locations in Saskatchewan and was funded for 3 years (2019-2021).
Read MoreBreeding spring wheat varieties carrying semi-dwarfing genes is of interest, as these varieties experience less lodging, have a higher harvest index (HI), and in some cases higher grain yield and quality. The Rht18 semi-dwarf gene was back-crossed into the CWRS variety “CDC Utmost” from durum wheat and the resulting Near Isogenic Lines (NILs) were evaluated over a period of four years for potential linkage drag effects on a number of agronomic and quality traits. The short NILs were, on average, 15 cm shorter than their tall counterparts. The three stem internodes that were measured in this study, were all shorter in the short NILs.
Read MoreThe Saskatchewan Variety Performance Group (SVPG) is an informal group made up of stakeholders who are interested in variety performance testing in Saskatchewan. SVPG has coordinated the post-registration regional performance testing of spring wheat, durum, barley, oats and flax varieties since 2006.
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