The Oregon statewide variety trials provide growers with performance data on commonly grown and newly released wheat and barley varieties. Our close collaborations with public and private breeding programs allow us to test promising experimental lines and often allows us to accumulate 2-3 years of data on varieties before they are released. Trial locations are chosen to capture a range of environmental conditions and cropping systems in the wheat production areas of Oregon. We evaluate each variety in the program for yield, test weight, grain protein, plant height, and heading date, and evaluate each winter wheat entry for disease resistance and end-use quality.

SEE HOW VARIETIES ARE PERFORMING
Find 2023 Oregon Wheat and Barley Yield Trial Data here.

The Commission annually funds research to monitor the conditions for stripe rust to advise producers when controls may be needed. Variety selection can reduce the impact when selecting for less susceptible cultivars.

The current stripe rust conditions report and information on cultivar susceptibility is available below.

The Pacific Northwest Herbicide Resistance Initiative is underway and USDA-ARS is seeking input on problematic weeds. The survey of Pacific Northwest producers is intended to help determine priority problem weeds and their location under different management systems. Take the survey here.

After years in the planning process, construction on the new Cereal Quality Lab on the Corvallis campus of Oregon State University is now underway. Increasing capacity was one of the driving forces behind the rebuild and a reason for the Oregon Wheat Commission to commit funding to support the construction.

The construction plan consists of tearing down the wall between the old bakery and the flexible storage space in the room next door. This simple change will double the floor area of the space and allows OSU to design the lab from scratch as a research and teaching facility. This new lab will potentially triple throughput, allowing for noodles, cookies or pastries, and breads to run in the same day.

If your operation has corn production as an opportunity, it is critical to consider breaking the disease cycle with a non-grass crop following corn. When possible, tillage following the corn rotation before planting wheat is highly encouraged to help bury and break down corn residue and reduce the inoculum source. Watch the short field day video about Fusarium head blight or access the document outlining recommended actions from OSU here. This document is compiled as a follow up to the video, and is aimed as an informational resource for producers who plan to plant winter wheat, directly following corn.

FHB has been historically rare and of little economic importance due to limited springtime rainfall. However, with increased rainfall in spring, growers can take steps to assess and mitigate impacts, when needed. Learn more here.

With support of federal funds, wheat producers have been able to work with our research institutions to establish the carbon and soil center in Pendleton, Oregon at the Columbia Basin Ag Research Center.

The Center is home to our Long-Term Experiments (LTEs), some of which were started in the1930s. They are amongst the earliest existing agricultural experiments in the U.S. and are a vital part of the work required to quantify important aspects of our agricultural systems, including crop yield, soil carbon and soil health, weed control, and wheat diseases under different dryland grain production managements.

The Resilient Dryland Farming Appropriation (RDFA) is a federally funded project at the USDA-ARS Columbia Plateau Conservation Research Center and the OSU Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center in Pendleton.

With $2M in federal resources, the project is helping push the bounds of what can be accomplished in dryland wheat production systems. The aim to improve the overall profit margin of the Oregon wheat cash crop while enhancing resiliency. Resiliency in this context speaks to the robustness of dryland wheat production systems including climate variability, market volatility, weather, and other unpredictable challenges.