The Maryland Wheat Breeding Program is working to develop high yielding winter wheat varieties adapted to the Mid-Atlantic's unique environment. Through research, high yielding SCAB resistant soft red winter wheat (SRW) cultivars are being bred as well as released to the public and saved for cover crop planting.
The Small Grain Breeding Program is focused on delivering the needs of the local growers. Public varieties coming from University of Maryland will provide low cost and well adapted SRW cultivars with increased FHB (fusarium head blight) resistance and improved PHS (pre-harvest sprouting) tolerance that will help increase wheat acreages in this region.
Screening of SRW wheat germplasm is being done at the University of Maryland and continually increasing the seeds of the most promising lines for their evaluation as efficient cover crops. This part of the project will work towards developing PVP (plant variety protection) soft red winter wheats that can be used to grow as cover crops and their seeds can be saved by the growers.
Dr. Vijay Tiwari of the University of Maryland has been leading the research in this three year project.
The Maryland Grain Producers funded this project in 2020 with $20,000 and are pleased to fund again in 2021 with an additional $20,000.