USDA grant helps in pursuit of lower-cost, lower-impact rotation crop

By MATTHEW WEAVER

Capital Press

Researchers are working to develop wheat that doesn't have to be planted each year.

"It's like a perennial in your flower bed: It comes back every year," said Sieg Snapp, a Michigan State University agronomist and associate professor in soil and cropping systems ecology. "We don't know for how long, but we think for three to four years, so far."

Snapp's research efforts recently received $1 million in USDA grant toward research for organic farming systems.

The perennial wheat would be available to all farmers, Snapp said.

The four-year study is being conducted at Michigan State University's W.K. Kellogg Biological station, in Hickory Corners, Mich.

Snapp, a graduate of Washington State University, is working with wheat lines that are crossbred with perennial wheat relatives in Washington by former WSU winter wheat breeder Stephen Jones.

"When I heard about this whole new type of crop that could perhaps save farmers money, I just had to try it," Snapp said, noting soft white wheat is grown in Michigan.

Jones and Snapp said perennial wheat could wind up saving farmers money by reducing the number of times planted.

The wheat could aid farmers with lower costs, by building soils, lowering erosion, providing rotational options and increased nutritional value of the grain, Jones said.

There may be some potential for grazing as well, Snapp said.

"For people who have a little bit of land that's perhaps a little more fragile, perhaps near a river, it would provide a new tool in the toolbox in terms of protecting land because it is perennial," she said.

Jones said his main goal is growing the perennial wheat in the Pacific Northwest. There have been trials for many years in Kahlotus, Ritzville and Pullman, he said.

Now the director of WSU's Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center in Mount Vernon, Wash., Jones said the Pullman trials will end this year, but the others will continue. He plans to add trials on the western side of the state.

"There is strong interest from many growers here, including potato and bulb growers, for its use as a two-year crop in a short-term rotation," Jones said.

There has been great success in developing lines for intermediate- and higher-rainfall regions, Jones said, but low-rainfall sites are more difficult because of stand establishment and lack of rain at important points in the growing cycle.

"We are working hard in the lowest-rainfall areas to make perennials work and will continue to do so," he said.

The first perennial wheat variety trial in Michigan, a soft white wheat, was run in 2006. Snapp said there have been issues with dry falls, but she is learning how the variety performs and is also considering grain quality. A perennial hard red wheat is in the works, she said.

Snapp said she would be releasing some of the better-performing varieties to growers as soon as possible to get feedback early in the process and possibly to get further use for the crop.

The varieties don't prove themselves until tested for several years, Snapp said, and significant supplies of adapted varieties should be available within 10 years.

"It will take time, but it may bring a whole new way of farming," she said.

Matthew Weaver is based in Spokane. E-mail: mweaver@capitalpress.com.