UC Amarillo wheat aims for artisan baking market
program. Students, post-docs and breed- ers can go to the field and take notes, so we have not lost any of the experiments to studygenes that control theyieldpotential ofwheat,diseaseresistanceandthequality and nutrition.” UC and the Wheat Commission have worked in recent years to develop more lucrative nichemarkets for small grains. “The UC Davis breeding program is a major developer of public wheat varieties forgrowing inCalifornia thathavesuperior performance, disease resistanceandgrain quality,” UC Davis plant breeder Allison Krill-Brown said.
She said theuniversity’s Plant Breeding Center Student Collaborative Organic Plant Breeding Education Project has partnered with the Wheat Commission to establish an organic grain-breeding program “to provide organic farmers in California with unique varieties to grow andmarket.” The Virtual FieldDay presentations are available on the UC small-grains website: smallgrains.ucanr.edu/Field_Days/2020_ Virtual_Field_Day. ( Bo b J o hn s o n i s a r e p o r t e r i n Sacramento. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@gmail.com.)
ByBob Johnson University of California researchers have developed a newwheat variety that restores its original yellow pigment and that they describe as rich in the nutritious carotenoids that are removed frommod- ern commercial varieties. Plant breeding has left most hardwhite wheat deficient in carotenoids, which im- prove the immune system and help pre- vent somecancers, according toUC,which said carotenoids are restored in the new variety, whichwas released for the artisan bakingmarket as UCAmarillo. “The flour for most common wheats is very white, but the original wheat has yellow pigment, the same as the durum until people selected for white,” UCwheat geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky said. “We de- cided to restore the yellow pigment be- cause those pigments have carotenoid pigments that are good for our health. The flourmadewithAmarillo is yellow.” He made his remarks during the UC Davis 2020Virtual Small Grains FieldDay, as researchers moved their presentations from the customary late spring tour of the campus agronomy test fields to the inter- net because of COVID-19 restrictions on large social gatherings. “If you are interested and serve artisan bakers, this may be a very interesting va- riety,” Dubcovsky said. “If we find some growers interested, we can make that seed available.” BecauseAmarillo isaspecialtygrain,UC researchers say they hope one of the seed companies finds it worth the cost to buy exclusive rights to the variety. “Itwill need tobecommercializedsepa- rately,”Dubcovsky said. “Weareexploring the possibility that someone will want an exclusive with this variety, but we don’t haveanybody really interested. Ifwedon’t findanybodybySeptemberorOctober,we will probably do it for public release and seedwill be available.” Amarillo was included along with UC Patwin 515 and UC Central Red in a re- cent panel of lines tested for theCalifornia
Wheat Commission in sourdough formu- lations by professional baker KeithGiusto of theArtisanalBakingCenter inPetaluma. Though many UC agricultural events have been postponed due to COVID-19, Dubcovsky said grain-breeding research has continued as usual. “Our program fortunately has been de- clared essential,” he said. “We have been able to continue working on the breeding
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September 9, 2020 Ag Alert 17
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