HYBRITECH, A MONSANTO COMPANY.

6025 West 300 South, Lafayette, IN 47905-9278, USA.

Soft red winter hybrid wheat research.

Koy E. Miskin, Kendell Hellewell, Jamie Bobula, Rollin Machtmes, Justin Cooley, and Kathi Martin.

Hybrid wheat is finally here. Monsanto received the registration for Genesis, the first effective and approved chemical hybridizing agent. Genesis allows the screening of thousands of lines for potential inbreds and eliminates the need for maintainer lines and the problems with restorer genes. This is a tremendous breakthrough. We now can make and test many more new hybrids each year. This year, we will produce 2,440 new hybrids.

The first major advantage of hybrid wheat will likely be the consistency of yield and higher yield performance. Hybrids are adapted more broadly and cope much better in harsh environments. Quantum 708, in over 300 on-farm trials over 3 years and across the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions, won the trials 92 % of the time. More importantly, Quantum 708 showed a positive return per acre above cultivars nearly 80 % of the time. The return on investment averaged $2.72 for each additional dollar spent on seed. Additional advantages include the use of hybrids as the platform for the release of biotechnological advancements. Consistency of yield will be a great advantage to farmers over time.

Three new potential SRWW hybrids are in pilot production this year. At least one of these will be released in 1999. The hybrids are early maturing and have outperformed Quantum 708 over the past 3 years.

Hard red winter hybrid wheat research.

Gordon Cisar, Randy Rich, and Bobby Talley. 806 N. Second St., P.O. Box 1320, Berthoud, CO 80513 USA.

The 1996-97 season. The 1997 season in the Great Plains began with significant spring freeze damage in the southern Great Plains, with damage being particularly severe on early maturing cultivars. Although some nurseries and fields were abandoned, recovery was good to excellent, and yields and test weights were quite high. The state of Kansas reported record yield levels. In Montana, yield levels and test weights also were quite high, but so was the sawfly infestation.

Hybrid development. Some 2,000 hybrid combinations in various stages of development were evaluated at a number of locations throughout the Great Plains in 1997. Both parents of 77 of these hybrids were in the trial to provide for an estimate of heterosis. The average best-parent heterosis was 103.4 % in 1997. The range was 32.4 %, and the standard deviation of the distribution was 6.9 %.

Pedigree information and hybrid performance data were used to assign inbred lines to heterotic gene pools. We currently have six gene pools, but expect one (the R-line pool, which is in T. timopheevi cytoplasm) to be a short-term pool as we transition out of a CMS-based hybrid program to a CHA (Genesis)-based hybrid program.

New releases. Three new hybrids have been released for production in the 1997-98 season:

Quantum 7406 (tested as XH1706) will replace Quantum 566. Quantum 7406 has excellent winter hardiness and much-improved straw strength compared to Q 566. Susceptibility to leaf rust and Septoria will limit adaptability to western Kansas, western Nebraska, and eastern Colorado.

Quantum 7460 (tested as XH1860) will replace Quantum 579, after showing a 2.6 bu/A yield advantage over 3 years of testing. Area of adaptation will be the southern Great Plains.

Quantum 7504 (tested as WX94-1604) has the best protection against leaf rust and leaf blight of all of the Quantum hybrids and is adapted to the eastern core of the hard wheat market. Q 7504 also has the best milling and baking quality characteristics of all the Quantum hybrids.

Personnel. We have divided our resources approximately equally between HRWW and HWWW. Dr. Blaine Johnson, who recently joined HybriTech from the University of Nebraska, will be the senior project leader working on the HWWW project, along with Jim Reeder and Aaron Brown. Dr. Gordon Cisar, Randy Rich, and Bobby Talley will be working on the HRWW project.

Soft white winter hybrid wheat research.

Blake Cooper, Ben Moreno-Sevilla, and Steve Scherer. 407 North Cloverdale, Boise, ID 83713, USA.

This was a watershed year for the PNW team, highlighted by the release of the first SWWW hybrid for the PNW, Quantum 7817. This hybrid has shown consistent yield advantages over check cultivars Stephens and Madsen in the Northern Columbia Basin and particularly in the Palouse regions, which are two of the primary targets for this hybrid. Performance of hybrids in regional nurseries generally continues to confirm a good opportunity for hybrid wheat in the PNW in the future. We have started to fill our inbred breeding pipeline with proprietary-developed material and rely less heavily on public germplasm. Two tester lines were identified based on combining ability analysis, which we hope will start the formation of families to increase heterosis in the future.

Our group successfully completed a major move from Corvallis, OR, to our new home at 407 N. Cloverdale, Boise, ID 83713, into a brand new 15,000+ sq. ft. office/warehouse facility. This move logistically places us roughly half way between the anticipated hybrid seed production areas in Idaho and Washington.

We also had some significant changes in personnel during 1997. Hal Lewis, who had directed the research effort since its inception in 1993, left the program. Blake Cooper is the new Sr. Project Leader and is ably assisted by Project Leader, Benjamin Moreno-Sevilla, and Sr. Research Associate, Steven Scherer. Our Production Research team is lead by Glenn Mahrt and Andrea Westedt, a new addition from Michigan State. Dennis Delaney moved from Lafayette, IN, to head up the company-wide Foundation Seed project now based in the PNW. Robert Simerly is the PNW Regional Hybrid Production Manager. Chris Davis operates out of Odessa, WA, managing seed production in that general area. Tom Parks commercially covers the Montana market from Billings. Just after the new year, we hired Mark Hennen as our new Strategic Business Team Leader, to direct the overall effort in this market. We continue to maintain a small breeding effort in hard spring wheat. That effort is based on the 1996 AgriPro germplasm acquisition.

We are anticipating considerable growth during 1998, both in terms of staffing levels and new products coming into the marketplace. There will be an increased focus on production technology in the PNW across market classes, due to the favorable hybrid production environment present in the region.

Hard white winter hybrid wheat research.

Blaine Johnson. 806 N. Second St., P.O. Box 1320, Berthoud, CO 80513 USA

Although HybriTech has had hard white germplasm in its Plains Hard Winter Wheat breeding program for some time, a project specifically dedicated to hard white wheat was initiated in the autumn of 1997. The mission of the project is the development of commercially viable HWWW hybrids. The immediate goals include development of a long-term strategy for germplasm development, development of efficient hybrid-breeding protocols, and placement of current germplasm into the appropriate place in the hybrid development pipeline. A component of the project will focus on quality traits, and efforts in this area are being coordinated with Monsanto's Wheat Quality Trait Team.

Work accomplished includes identification of heterotic groups, and germplasm currently is being evaluated and placed into appropriate groups. A series of breeding crosses was made in the greenhouse during the winter months of 1997-98, with the primary objective being the improvement of the expected genetic value, as expressed in hybrid progeny, of current parental lines. Additional useful germplasm is being sought and/or identified to be brought into the white wheat breeding program. Yield trials were conducted in 1997 on a limited number of white wheat hybrids developed before the HWWW Project was initiated formally. Based on 1-year's data, several white wheat hybrids were found to be agronomically competitive with commercially grown checks. These hybrids were planted for additional testing in the 1997-98 growing season.

Breeding Technology Team.

Jerry Wilson and LaWanda Simmons. 5912 North Meridian Street, Wichita, KS 67204, USA.

The formation of a project to serve as a connecting point between the HybriTech U.S. breeding programs and the Monsanto labs in St. Louis began in 1996 and will be completed in the second quarter of 1998. Major responsibilities of the Breeding Technology Team will include the integration and testing of transgenic traits in elite HybriTech germplasm from all three U.S. breeding projects, exploring and implementing technology that can shorten breeding cycle time, supporting the molecular genetics lab in St. Louis by supplying them with crosses and segregating populations, and coördinating germplasm exchange in and outside HybriTech. The team also will assume responsibility for all activities on the Wichita farm after the 1998 harvest.

HybriTech has committed significant resources to support the breeding technology efforts. Heating and lighting systems in the Wichita greenhouses were upgraded, and a new addition to the research facilities housing a tissue culture lab and growth chamber room is nearing completion. A Convirons CG108 unit was installed recently and is functional.

Research staffing changes are being implemented. Jerry Wilson will continue to serve as the Breeding Technology Team Leader. LaWanda Simmons is leaving her technician position at the end of March, and Gary Greer and Julie Zitlow will be moving from hard wheat research to breeding technology during 1998. HybriTech will hire a lab manager for the new facility. Monsanto will provide additional staffing and monetary support for the start-up of the new lab, including the relocation of Dr. Cliff Hunter from St. Louis to Wichita to give overall guidance and direction to the technology that will be implemented in the lab.