b'Everything about farmers makes me excited and optimistic. They have ingenuity and resilience. They are risk takers. They are willing to try things. They see opportunities and theyre already changing to meet those opportunities.David Phillipswestern Canada, and emerge as a pest in winter wheat. Weve been working on breeding solid stem winter wheat varieties for about 15 years now. If and when it becomes a problem in western Canada as it has in Montana, we want to be ready for it. As plantNew Varietiesbreeders, we have to be looking forward a decade or even more.Winter Wheat Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Theres no question Mother Nature can be unruly, but PhillipsFood Canada in Lethbridge, Alta., Robert Graf has a thinks Canadian farmers are well positioned to rise to volatilenew and creative idea for helping farmers respond weathers challenges.to volatile weather more flexibly. He is currently Everything about farmers makes me excited and optimistic.working on developing new wheat cultivars which They have ingenuity and resilience. They are risk takers. Theycan be planted in either the fall or spring. are willing to try things. They see opportunities and theyre already changing to meet those opportunities. Who would haveFor lack of another word and to differentiate these thought of growing pulses on the prairies 20 years ago? And,[cultivars], Im calling them flex wheats, says Graf. they listen to the science and ag agents, he says.Based on winter wheat germplasm, these lines Its not the doom and gloom story that some think. Therehave excellent cold tolerance and a very strong are going to be a lot of clear winners if farmers follow trends,photoperiod requirement, which means seedlings experiment more, list to ag agents, and take advantage of newthat start growing in the fall will stay vegetative until opportunities. longer spring days allow them to restart growth andMadeleine Baerg become reproductive. However, because Graf has bred out the vernalization (winter cold) requirement, they can be planted in the spring and grow equally well.Very often, there are farmers who plan to seed winter wheat and then the weather turns, and they cant get it in. They have seed and fertilizer and other inputs on hand, so in a normal scenario, theyd have to wait until the following fall to plant the winter wheat seed. The interesting thing with a flex wheat is they could take the seed theyd planned to plant in the fall and instead seed it in the spring.Graf cautions flex wheats breeding efforts are still in very early days. While trials show the experimental lines survive as well as some winter wheats, many agronomic quality and disease resistance questions arent yet answered.Id say that this is on a 15-year-plus horizon, he says.Graf cautions that, unfortunately, a spring-seeded flex wheatdespite having winter wheat cold tolerance geneticswont likely offer enhanced tolerance to volatile early spring temperatures, as it takes several weeks for cold tolerance to build in a plant. It also wont offer tolerance to late summer frosts.34seed.ab.ca'