Source: UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA submitted to
DEVELOPING HARD RED SPRING WHEAT ADAPTED TO ALASKA TO ENHANCE LOCAL FOOD SECURITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1009580
Grant No.
(N/A)
Project No.
ALK17-01
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Oct 1, 2016
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2021
Grant Year
(N/A)
Project Director
Zhang, MI.
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA
(N/A)
FAIRBANKS,AK 99775
Performing Department
Agriculture and Horticulture
Non Technical Summary
In Alaska, there are 2237.9 hectares of small grain and most of them are feed barley with a crop value of $951,000. Currently, nearly 80% or more of the food consumed in the state is imported in from outside via ground, ocean and air transportation. The importance of food security and locally produced food are primary concerns for people in Alaska. These concerns are not driven by media or academic scholars, but from hard lessons learned from experiences. In only a few days after interruption of traffic in Alaska Highway due to spring flood in 2012, major grocery stores in the state suffered from food shortages. Alaska has 16 million hectares of land suitable for agriculture. Currently only a small fraction is used. With a longer in growing season already occurring as a result of climate change, Alaska can be a key potential grain production area for the nation in the future. The urgent task now is to develop an early maturing hard red spring wheat cultivar for Alaska.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
75%
Applied
25%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
20315411081100%
Goals / Objectives
Selecting and evaluating crosses of an Alaska local hard red spring wheat variety 'Ingal' with three Canadian hard red spring wheat varieties: CDC Bounty, Roblin, and AC Intrepid in three locations in Alaska;Selecting and evaluating a Nordic variety with Gpc-B1 allele in fields in Alaska;Field selecting and evaluating varieties from Agrologica in Alaska;Advance early generation crosses from WSU through Alaska breeding nurseries for adaptability;Outreach to producers for their input on the selection process and demonstrate field research results through field days and presentations at end of season growers' conferences.
Project Methods
The proposed activities consist of two types: research and extension activities.For research activity, we will conduct field experiments in Alaska in order to select early maturing spring wheat for the region.Field experiments will be conducted in three locations in Alaska (Fairbanks, Delta Junction, and Palmer). In the field experiments, seed increase from F3 of three crosses of 'Ingal' with CDC Bounty (I×B), with AC Intrepid (I×I), with Roblin (I×R) will be conducted in 2016 summer. After that, replicated trials will be evaluated each in a plot (1.83 m x 10.97 m) with a population of about 5,000 plants per plot in 2017. Selection will be made from those plots (F4). Following a seed increase of F4 selection in 2018 summer, replicated trial will be conducted and selection will be made from those plots (F5) in 2019. Yield will be evaluated from replicated plots for F5 and generations beyond in 2020 and 2021. In addition, seven Nordic varieties, a Nordic wheat germplasm containing Gpc-1, and other inbred lines from Agrologica of Demark will be also tested in the field. Seed increase will be done in the growing season of 2016. Replicated trials will start in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 growing season. Plant phenology data (such as emergence, leaf stage, plant height, boot, heading, flowering, etc.) will be recorded. Weather data will also be collected at each tested site so that growing degree days can be calculated for each stage of plant growth. The selection criteria are early maturity, high yield, and disease resistance, resistance to head shattering and lodging. Wheat is not a crop grown in large acreage in Alaska. The type and severity of a disease to wheat is yet to be determined in the project.For extension activity, we will use participatory breeding process practiced by Dr. Stephen Jones for many years. In this process we will invite growers to participate in field selection of F3 and beyond so that the growers' input happens at the beginning of the selection process. Selected small grain growers will visit field and provide their inputs for selections. Selections will be made by professionals in the university with the consideration of growers' suggestions. In addition, a field day will be organized in each year to show field experiments to growers. Results will be presented at farmers' meeting on an annual basis in late October or early November in Delta Junction Harvest Wrap up, a small grain growers meeting organized by university cooperative extension. The collected data from the field will be available for public access in the web site and allow public input through emails. Methods to be used in carrying out the proposed projectPedigree breeding method and completely randomized block design will be used for field experiments. Seeds of F3 from each cross will be seeded in rows in field for seed increase in 2016. After that, treatments of F3 from each cross will be randomly arranged in a block and replicated three times in the field experiments in 2017. Date of seeding, emergence, leaf stage, plant height, boot, heading, flowering, and maturity will be recorded for each treatment. Selection for single head (50 heads, F4) of inbred lines will be made in 2017 based on early maturity, disease resistance, resistance to lodging, and resistance to head shattering (particular important for I×B, I×I, and I×R). Alaska has low disease pressure for wheat due to lack of wheat cultivation history. The kind and severity of diseases will be investigated for each selected inbred line. In 2018, the F4 will be seeded in single rows for seed increase, and those seeds will be saved for seeding in a randomized plots for next year selection (F5) in 2019. For F6 and F7, yield will be evaluated from the selections. Automatic weather stations will be installed at field sites for recording the climatic conditions from each site. Growing degree days will be calculated for each line for each growth stage. Grain samples will also be taken for nutrient and protein concentration analysis. Baking properties of selected lines will be sent to WSU for baking quality test.Means by which results will be analyzed, assessed, or interpretedThe field results will be analyzed by two- way ANOVA for multi-environment trials (MET) where genotype, environment, and their interaction are treated as in a mixed model: yij = µ +gi + biej +?ij,where yij is response variable (such as yield) of the ith genotype in the jth environment, µ is the overall mean, gi is the fixed effect of ith genotype, ej is the main effect of the jth environment, bi is a score for genotype, and ?ij is the error term for with ijth genotype and environment combination. I = 1...Ng, j= 1...Ne. Because replicates are used in the trial in a given environment location, interactions of genotype and environment can be estimated.For all statistical analysis, yield and other observed variables such as dates of boot, flowering, maturity will be analyzed.Tuckey's Honest Significant Difference at 5% probability will be used to evaluate the mean differences after ANOVA.Also, for data analysis, three sets of MET will be used: all sites, sites in Alaska, and sites in PNW so that overall performance of genotypes in the whole region, and in the local environment can be thoroughly ascertained.Statistical analysis will be performed using SYSTAT (Systat Software Inc., San Jose, CA, USA) or SAS (SAS Institute Inc., Cary NC, USA).How results or products will be usedThe results from each year will be disseminated to farmers at events such as Harvest Wrap up in Alaska and winter farmers' meetings in the PNW.The research results will also be presented at conferences by the Ph.D. graduate student on this project.After the release of new wheat varieties, wheat seeds will be sent to Alaska Plant Material Center for seed production, farmers will then purchase the seeds from the center and grow them in their fields.Education componentMs. Bethany Econopouly has been recruited as the Ph.D. student working on this project.She will be registered at Washington State University and her major supervisor is Dr. Stephen Jones.Upon finishing her course work, she will work on the project and travel to experimental sites of both states.The graduate student stipend is covered by Glen Franklin Endowment Fund for Cropping Systems from Washington State University.

Progress 10/01/20 to 09/30/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Small grain growers, and publics who are concerned about Alaska food safety. Changes/Problems:Major problem for the research is the migratory birds in spring afterseeding and in fall before combining. If bird invaded in the plot area, sand hill cranes like to eat wheat but not other small grain crops. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Information was delivered to growers in the Harvest Wrap-Up, a growers' meeting in the Delta Junction area of Alaska on Dec. 7, 2021. Also, there are many site visitors in the Fairbanks Experiment Farm to see the experiment during the growing season. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Have the Ingal x Intrepid crossing tested for baking quality. We will continue to write a Hatch proposal for selecting a suitable spring wheat for Alaska.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The cross of Ingal and Intrepidshowed a good performance, but uniformity in plant height, kernal size is still an issue in 2021 growing season. Selection of large kernal and small kernal from the cross has been done in Palmer, but not in Fairbanks due to limited travel caused by COVID-19. The cross of Ingal and Intrepidappears overcome the issue of seed shattering in maturity of Ingal, yet can reach maturity in the interior Alaska. It can be a promised wheat variety in Alaska.

Publications


    Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/21

    Outputs
    Target Audience:Small grain growers in the Delta Junction area of Alaska, and publics who are concerned about Alaska food safety. Changes/Problems:Migratary birds are the major concern for the research. In the next project phase, wide protection area with barley should be planted so that they can protect bird to access to the research plots. Covid-19 has caused the shortage of skilled labors for the project, which impacted planned researchprocedure , such as field sampling, sample handling, sample process and submission etc. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A MS graduate student was trained in crop modeling based on the research results and graduated, and a Ph.D. from Washington State University was trained and graduated from the project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Four publications are disseminated to growers, scientist, and publics. Those include three journal papers with a leading author of graduate students, and an extension publication targeting Alaska growers. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?To prevent the bird damage, wide protection area should be planted.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? The major accomplishment for the project is that we selected Ingal x Intrepid cross out from severalcrossings of northern spring wheat varieties with Ingal, the Alaska spring wheat variety. The Ingal x AC Intrepidcan reach maturity in Alaska short growing season, yet overcome the issue of seed shattering at maturity of Ingal. But the unresolved issue with the cross is the uniformity in plant height and seed size.

    Publications

    • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Econopouly, Bethany F, Bob M Van Veldhuizen, Steven R Lyon, David W Killilea, Mingchu Zhang, Stephen S Jones. 2018. Early maturing spring wheat in Nordic wildtype NAM-B1 germplasm for short-duration alternative wheat production regions. Plant Genetic Resources. 17(4), 352-361.
    • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Performance of Agronomic Crop Varieties in Alaska 1978-2012


    Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

    Outputs
    Target Audience:The target audiences are plant breeders both domestic and international, Alaska small grain farmers, and students who are interested in production agriculture. Changes/Problems:Birds are still very challenging. Better guardian rows of crops should be planted in 2021. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Those results are reported to farmers through various means such as emails. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Through our unit news letters. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to seed those crosses again in 2021 growing seasons, hoping to have a more uniform population.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? The cross of Ingal, a local Alaska early mature spring wheat with Canadian spring wheat AC Intrepid has shown a great potentials. We separatedthe cross into large and small seeds since 2015, hoping that one would stablize fast. In 2020 growing season. Both are still not stablized, and therefore, more years of testing are needed. Also, in recent years, growing season weather varied greatly. That might be part of the reason why the cross even though can reach maturity and less shattering issue than the parent Ingal, still the height of the plants are not uniformed.

    Publications


      Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

      Outputs
      Target Audience:Alaska and circumpolar small grain farmers.Alaska and circumpolar small grain farmers. Changes/Problems:Migratory birds are the challenges for the plots both in seeding and harvesting. Extra effort is needed to protect the plots from sabotage by birds. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Ph.D. candidate Bethany Econopouly of the Mount Vernon Research and Extension Center of Washington State University worked on this project as a part of her thesis. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The variety and breeding selection test results have been presented to local farmers at workshops sponsored by AFES and CES like the annual Harvest Wrap-Up and Sustainable Ag Conference. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Continue to conduct field experiments, and make selections from breeding lines for a better adapted wheat for Alaska.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? Three plant physiologic growth stages were used along with the weather data to measure crop adaptability, emergence, heading/flowering, and maturity at the Fairbanks (FBKS) and Palmer (PAL) locations. With the continuing reduction in budget and manpower allocations at the Delta Junction (DJ) location, no trials were planted in 2018- 2019. However, weather data was collected from the DJ location at it is a potential growing area. Emergence, heading/flowering, and maturity occurred on close to the long term average at both FBKS and PAL locations for all wheat varieties and breeding lines. Cooperative research with Dr. Steve Jones, director/plant breeder and Dr. Karen Hills, former graduate research assistant, Washington State University, Mount Vernon Northwestern Washington Research & Extension Center, Mount Vernon, WA, provided F2 generation hard red spring wheat crosses between the Alaska variety Ingal and early Canadian varieties AC Intrepid, CDC Bounty, and Roblin for evaluation and selection trials in 2010. The crosses were made in an attempt to have the early maturity of Ingal with the seed shatter resistance of the Canadian varieties and were compared in field trials with each of the parents every year since. The Ingal x AC Intrepid has shown the greatest potential with early maturity and high yields at all three locations. Maturity of the crosses was comparable with the parents at both locations, occurring at 1202 growing degree days (GDD) in FBKS and 1072 GDD in PAL. Yields of this cross were 3037 lbs/acre at FBKS and 420 at PAL. Yields compared with the parents Ingal were 1842 lbs/acre at FBKS and 374 at PAL and AC Intrepid were 3014 at FBKS and 493 at PAL. Part of the yield differences was due to predation by spring migratory birds after planting and the severe drought at the PAL location. Single head selections from the Ingal x AC Intrepid cross have been taken for both small and large early maturing heads were collected in starting in 2015 and planted out in in succeeding years to evaluate crop uniformity along with early maturity, lodging, and shatter resistance. Small head selections from the original cross yielded 1580 lbs/acre and large head selections yielded 2713 lbs/acre at the Fairbanks location. Maturity for both sizes of head selections was the same as for the original cross at 1202 GDD.

      Publications

      • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Econopouley, Bathany, Bob M Van Veldhuizen, Steven R Lyon, David W Killilea, Mingchu Zhang, Stephen S Jones. 2019. Early maturing spring wheat in Nordic wildtype NAM-B1 germplasm for short-duration alternative wheat producing regions. Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization. 17(4), 352-361.


      Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18

      Outputs
      Target Audience:Alaska small grain growers and small grain growers in west coast area of Washington State. Changes/Problems:Migratory birds at time of seeding and harvesting continue to be a problem for a successful field experiment. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Ph.D. candidate Bethany Econopouly of Mount Vernon Research and Extension Center of Washington State University benefit from the project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results have been reported to small grain growers in Delta Junction area of Alaska through workshop, and also presented in Alaska Sustainable Agriculture Conference in Anchorage. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to conduct field experiments in Palmer and Fairbanks in Alaska to select suitable lines of hard red spring wheat for Alaska and for West coast area of Washington State.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? Three plant physiologic growth stages were used along with the weather data to measure crop adaptability, emergence, heading/flowering, and maturity at the Fairbanks (FBKS) and Palmer (PAL) locations. Due to a major change in budget and manpower allocations at the Delta Junction (DJ) location, no trials were planted in 2017- 2018. However, weather data was collected from the DJ location at it is a potential growing area. Emergence, heading/flowering, and maturity occurred on close to the long term average at both FBKS and PAL locations for all wheat varieties and breeding lines. Cooperative research with Dr. Steve Jones, director/plant breeder and Dr. Karen Hills, former graduate research assistant, Washington State University, Mount Vernon Northwestern Washington Research & Extension Center, Mount Vernon, WA, provided F2 generation hard red spring wheat crosses between the Alaska variety Ingal and early Canadian varieties AC Intrepid, CDC Bounty, and Roblin for evaluation and selection trials in 2010. The crosses were made in an attempt to have the early maturity of Ingal with the seed shatter resistance of the Canadian varieties and were compared in field trials with each of the parents every year since. The Ingal x AC Intrepid has shown the greatest potential with early maturity and high yields at all three locations. Maturity of the crosses was comparable with the parents at both locations, occurring at 1257 growing degree days (GDD) in FBKS and 1289 GDD in PAL. Yields of this cross were 1163 lbs/acre at FBKS and 1949 at PAL. Yields compared with the parents Ingal were 1224 lbs/acre at FBKS and 1904 at PAL and AC Intrepid were 739 at FBKS and 1911 at PAL. Part of the yield differences was due to predation by spring migratory birds after planting. Single head selections from the Ingal x AC Intrepid cross have been taken for both and small large early maturing heads were collected in starting in 2015 and planted out in in succeeding years to evaluate crop uniformity along with early maturity, lodging, and shatter resistance. Dr. Steve Jones and Ms. Bethany Econopouly, graduate research assistant, at the Mount Vernon Research and Extension Unit of Washington State University provided 73 Nordic Germplasm hard red spring wheat lines for evaluation and testing at the Fairbanks location in 2016. Three of the best of the 73 Nordic Germplasm wheat lines, all from Finland, were selected for continued evaluation in 2018. Emergence, heading and maturity were comparable with all hard red spring wheat varieties, albeit two to three days later in maturity than the Alaska varieties Ingal and Nogal, at the FBKS (1288 vs. 1252 GGD) and PAL (1287 vs. 1274 GDD) locations. Average yields from these wheat selections were greater and test weights equal to the standard test variety. This indicates that one or more of these three selections have potential to be used in future wheat breeding with the Alaska variety Nogal in an attempt to produce a higher yielding and better adapted variety for Alaska.

      Publications

      • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2018 Citation: Econopouly, Bethany F, Bob M Van Veldhuizen, Steven R Lyon, David W Killilea, Mingchu Zhang, Stephen S Jones. 2018 Early maturing spring wheat in Nordic wildtype NAM-B1 germplasm for short-duration alternative wheat production regions. Plant Genetic Resources.


      Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/17

      Outputs
      Target Audience:The Alaska small grain farmers. Changes/Problems:Plot damages from migratory birds at seeding time in May and harvesting time in late August are the number 1 challenge for the success of the field experiment and selection process. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Ph.D. candidate Bethany Econopouly of Mount Vernon Research and Extension Center of Washington State University is working on this project as a part of her thesis. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results have been reported to small grain growers in Alaska through workshops What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to conduct the field experiment for selcting best suitable hard red spring wheat for Alaska

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? Field experiment with spring wheat from Ingal x CDC Boundy, Ingal x Roblin and Ingal x AC Intrepid, and 73 lines of Nordic wheat were conducted in Fairbanks (FBKS). There were three replicates for each of the tested varieties. In addition, parent of the crosses were included in the experiment, they were Ingal, CDC Boundy, Roblin, and ACIntrepid.Seeds were seeded in May and harvested in late August of 2017. During the growing season,physiolical stages of emergency, heading and maturity were recordedalong with the temperature and precipication data. The growing degree days were calculated for each physiological stage. Due to a major change in budget, and manpower allocations in 2017, no field trail was conducted in Delta Junction (DJ) location. However, weather information for DJ and Palmer (PAL), the potential area for growing spring wheat were collected. The 2017 growing season was warmer than the long term average for all three locations and except for the DJ location, also wetter. By the end of May, DJ was 25 growing degree days (GDD) higher and 0.3 inches of precipitation lower, FBKS was 18 GDD higher and 0.4 in higher and PAL was 79 GDD lower and 0.3 in higher. At the end of June DJ was 83 GDD higher and 0.9 in lower, FBKS 76 GDD higher and 0.5 in higher and PAL 5 GDD lower and 0.4 in higher. At the end of July DJ was 177 GDD higher and 1.3 in lower, FBKS 196 GDD higher and 1.1 in higher and PAL 25 GDD higher and 1.5 in higher. At the end of the season in August DJ was 242 GDD higher and 1.8 in lower, FBKS 276 GDD higher and 1.4 in higher and PAL 26 GDD higher and 1.3 in higher. Three plant physiologic growth stages were used along with the weather data to measure crop adaptability, emergence, heading/flowering, and maturity. Emergence, heading/flowering, and maturity occurred on close to the long term average at both FBKS and PAL locations for all crops. Maturity for the 73 Nordic Germplasm wheat lines was later by one to two days. This was an important indicator of the potential lack of adaptability. Average yields from these wheat selections were greater and test weights equal to the standard test variety. The wheat breeding selections from Washington State University used the Alaska variety 'Ingal' as one of the parents. These selections fared much better with maturity and yields very similar to the standard variety, with the 'Ingal' x AC 'Intrepid' showing a greater potential.

      Publications

      • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Performance of Agronomic Crop Varieties in Alaska 1978-2012