TRIGEN SEED SERVICES LLC

8024 Telegraph Road, Bloomington, MN 55438, USA; and Buenos Aires, Argentina *.

Robert W. Romig, Daniel R. Romig, and Hector E. Lerner *.

Our wheat program will complete 6 years of activity in May 1999. Our main breeding focus is the generation of improved hard red wheats of different growth habits for various markets. We continue to make combinations between and within wheats of winter, intermediate, and spring growth habits.

Current nursery sites are located near San Antonio, TX, and Holtville, CA. The latter site is free of Karnal bunt and replaces the Somerton, AZ, location we previously had used. The quality of seed will be improved, and turn-around time of our off-season grow outs in the southwest will be shorter. We expect to resume shuttling segregating populations from the U.S. to Argentina because of this change. We will relocate our Minnesota spring wheat nursery and trials northward to Warren, MN, in the Red River Valley, where we had excellent trial results in 1998. Our selections, trials, and seed-increases will be consolidated in an important wheat growing area with strong disease pressure from scab, tan spot, and leaf rust.

Several selections from the cross 'Probrand 822 / Norm' performed well last season in the upper midwest and are now on increase in southern California to provide seed for further production in Minnesota in 1999. Our 1998 nursery in Argentina was at Tres Sargentos, about 160 km west of Buenos Aires on national route 7. This site worked well, and we will continue there for next year. We obtained dryland yields of more than 6 tons/ha in trial plots last year. We now have a stable operational base in Argentina, so our nursery and trial work there will expand in 1999. We anticipate applying for registration of varieties after the 1999 harvest.

Our wheat production and marketing partner in Texas is Douglass King Co. of San Antonio. Our current product line in south Texas includes the spring wheats Norm and Verde, on license from the University of Minnesota. We also have licensed Oxen spring wheat from South Dakota for the Texas spring wheat market. We expect to introduce this variety in 1999.

Spring wheats are well adapted in southern Texas and compete well with the winter and intermediate wheats grown in the area. We are promoting spring wheat cultivation in this part of the country, because they offer growers flexibility in cropping options and a protein premium option. As one moves south, vernalization of winter wheats becomes less certain, so varieties with spring growth habit are the wheats of choice in this area.

A customer survey showed that many growers are not realizing the full potential of modern spring wheats. We think this is largely because of management practices, so we are collaborating with the Texas A & M Extension Service to see if we can improve farm yields. We also are exploring ways with our partner Douglass King to secure premium pricing for our customers for their high protein, spring wheat grain.