New seed treatment designed to boost cereals

Boosting nitrogen use to reduce nitrogen-based fertilizer applications, has been a feature of several products in the past five years. Lalrise Start SC liquid inoculant aims to improve another key nutrient. The seed treatment designed to enhance phosphorus solubility has received full commercial registration and will be available in spring 2024 for spring wheat, oats,[...]

How scientific minds changed toward perennial grains

In the early days of kernza — a perennial grain crop related to wheat — plant breeders at The Land Institute in Kansas couldn’t get a government grant to save their lives. “We got very nice compliments on our writing of the grant proposals and harsh criticism on the value of actually doing the work,”[...]



Brazil approves cultivation of GM wheat

Brazil has become the second country in the world, after Argentina, to approve the cultivation of genetically modified wheat, following a decision by the nation’s biosecurity agency CTNbio. The approval request was made by plant genetics company Tropical Melhoramento e Genetica, a partner in Brazil of Argentina’s Bioceres, which has developed a variety of drought-resistant[...]


The dawn of hybrid wheat

Global seed maker Syngenta plans to release a new type of wheat developed with complex cross-breeding techniques in the United States next year, beating out rival companies that are also trying to develop higher yielding wheat at a time of diminishing global grain supplies. The hybrid wheat, which combines positive traits from two parent plants,[...]

Strategie Grains lifts EU grain crop and export forecasts

Consultant Strategie Grains has further increased its monthly production forecasts for all three major cereals in the European Union in the current 2021-22 season, which it said will help the bloc to meet higher projected demand on the global market. However, the consultancy also echoed mounting concerns over the potential impact on grain quality from[...]


Argentina gambles on GM wheat

Reuters – In fields near the Argentine farm town of Pergamino, spiky green shoots of wheat stretch in neat rows to the horizon. It is a crop that developers hope will boost yields of the grain thanks to a single gene borrowed from sunflowers to help it better tolerate drought.  Reached along a dusty farm[...]

CWRS quantity down, but quality up

This year western Canadian farmers harvested a high-quality Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) wheat crop — albeit a smaller one due to drought. Ninety per cent of the 3,500 or so samples submitted to the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) through its annual Harvest Sample Program fell into the top two grades. Almost 96 per cent[...]


Winter wheat yields defy cold winter and harsh spring

Despite adverse conditions over winter and into spring, winter wheat has done surprisingly well this season, says one agrologist. In fall 2021, the early harvest led to early seeding, and the dry year resulted in leftover nutrients, so the crop was well fertilized. On top of that, it was an open fall, with no frost[...]

The (wheat) wonder Down Under

Reuters – Australia is poised for a third year of near-record wheat production in 2022 as good weather boosts planting across its Grain Belt, easing concerns over tight global inventories. World wheat supplies have tightened after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year cut off shipments from one of the top exporting regions, sending grain prices sharply higher and[...]