Heritage and Alternative Wheat

This project was designed to evaluate some potential heritage and alternative wheat varieties in an organic system. Studies were conducted for three years at three locations in New York and Pennsylvania in collaboration with colleagues from Cornell University, North Dakota State University and the Organic Research and Information Network. Both spring and winter wheat lines were evaluated.

These data are summarized from the original organic variety reports at The Cornell University Small Grains Cultivar Testing Website. This work was supported by National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA award #2011-51300-30697.

Winter Wheat

Winter wheat yields averaged 44.6 bu/a across all locations (Table 1). At the PA location, yields averaged 44.3 bu/acre. Yields of some of the modern varieties, like Warthog and Expedition, tended to be higher than some of the hertitage wheats like Fulcaster and Pride of Genesee. Red Fife yields were significantly lower and it also had some winterkill issues in some years. Some of the more popular organic wheats growing in PA are Warthog (hard red), Red Fife (hard red), Redeemer (hard red), Appalachian White (hard white).

The winter trials in PA were generally planted in mid October in tilled seedbeds. Trials were fertilized with pelletized poultry manure topdressed in early spring at a rate to apply a total of 70 lb N/a. Weeds were generally not a problem. Head scab was severe in one of the three years at the PA location. Yields may have been limited by N and would have likely benefited from rotation with a clover or alfalfa crop beforehand at the PA location. This is a strategy used by some organic producers.

This trial demonstrated that organic winter wheat production has potential in our state, that various classes of wheat can be grown and that in organic winter wheat production the most serious concern is with head scab in some years.

Table 1. Performance of winter wheat varieties at Freeville, NY, Rock Springs, PA, and Willsboro, NY under organic conditions during 2012-2015.

¹Yield = bushels/acre
²Test Weight = lbs/bushel

Spring Wheat

We also evaluated spring wheat lines during the program at multiple locations in PA, NY and ND (Table 2). Spring wheat lines were planted in early April, and topdressed with pelletized poultry manure at 70 lb N/acre. Yields averaged 30.5 bu/a across all locations and 24.7 bu/a at the Penn State location. Yields over the three years (Table 3) varied from 19.9 to 28.8 bu/acre.

Spring wheat is not as well adapted to our environment and often heat stress and late season disease pressure is more severe than for winter wheat. Often we assume that spring grain yields will be 40% less than winter grains and these results are in agreement with that. Spring wheats are better adapted to cooler environments in the mid Atlantic, like the Willsboro location in this study in Northesat NY.

Weed control was much more difficult with the spring wheat trials than with the winter trials in the Pennsylvania trials. Summer annual broadleaf and grassy weeds emerged with the crop and can be very competetive. We used tine weeding in the spring trials in an attempt to control weeds, but that was only partially effective.

Most of the spring wheats were hard red spring wheats, which typically have higher protein and are better suited for bread flour than the many of the soft winter wheats. So there is some motivation to grow these in our region. Red Fife and Glenn are two of the more common hard red spring wheats grown in our region. Glenn was one of the earliest heading spring wheats and this can be an advantage in our environment.

Table 2. Performance of spring wheat varieties at Freeville, NY, North Dakota, Rock Springs, PA, and Willsboro, NY under organic conditions during 2012-2015.

Table 3. Performance of spring wheat varieties at Rock Springs, PA, under organic conditions during 2012-2015.