07/06/05 Montana`s interest in WSU hard wheats

Farm and Ranch July 6, 2005 Two new winter wheats from Washington State University, a hard white named MDM, and a hard red called Bauermeister, were approved for full release this spring. The wheats were developed from the soft white winter wheat variety Eltan by WSU wheat breeder Steve Jones. He says there is interest in these wheats in Montana and that could prove beneficial to the Northwest. Jones: "Montana folks have been testing these varieties and last year both of them topped a few of the variety testing nurseries in Montana. They yield well there. The nice thing there too is the protein can be very high coming out of Montana. And we see that as a help especially in the hard white market because there is some risk in Washington state of having some low protein hard white and then what do we do with it. This one is no different than any other. The potential is there but if we can get some nice high protein hard white coming out of Montana in the form of MDM, then combine them with ours, it will help the growers out in case they get stuck with a 10 percent or 10.5 if we have some that's coming at 14 or 15% out Montana. We will be able to blend it up very well." There is plenty of hard red winter of high and low protein but that's not yet the case for hard white. Jones: "The hard white market is so juvenile right now it needs to mature into a facet where there is plenty of high and low and the elevators and other folks can blend it up to whatever protein they want." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.