South Dakota State University (SDSU) has released two new winter wheat varieties.

Director John Kirby of the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station at SDSU announced the release of a hard red winter wheat called Darrell and a hard white winter wheat called Alice.

SDSU winter wheat breeder Amir Ibrahim developed the new varieties in the SDSU breeding program. The South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station released them jointly due to their wide adaptation and good performance in both states.

The variety Darrell has been named to honor Darrell Wells, late former winter wheat breeder at South Dakota State University from 1962 to 1982. Darrell was released on the basis of its good disease resistance and excellent yield potential in the northern Great Plains.

Testing shows Darrell is a medium maturing wheat (152 days to heading from 1 January), similar to the variety Millennium, one day later than Arapahoe, four days later than Expedition, and two days earlier than Harding.  The winter survival of Darrell, as tested in South Dakota in the very cold winter of 2001, was good to excellent, similar to Alliance.

Darrell outyielded Wendy, Wesley, Expedition, Trego, and Arapahoe in testing, but yielded less than Millennium. It is resistant to stem rust, but moderately susceptible to leaf rust.  Darrell has the best head scab resistance record of any hard winter wheat tested in South Dakota over the past five years.  Darrell is moderately resistant to wheat streak mosaic virus.

Darrell was found to have acceptable milling and good baking qualities in cooperative baking tests by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service Hard Winter Wheat Quality Laboratory in Manhattan, Kan. In Wheat Quality Council tests in 2004 it was found to have very desirable alkaline noodle characteristics.

The variety Alice has been named to honor Alice Wright, administrative assistant for the South Dakota Wheat Commission for 23 years.

In testing at multiple sites from 2003-06, Alice was the earliest maturing wheat (148 days to heading from 1 January), similar to Wendy and Expedition, two days earlier than Wesley, and six days earlier than Harding. The winter survival of Alice, as tested in six South Dakota locations in the very cold winter of 2001, was fair, similar to Culver. Alice has the best pre-harvest sprouting resistance among any hard white winter wheat tested in the South Dakota Crop Performance Testing variety trial, similar to Crimson, and better than Millennium, Trego, and Wendy.
  
Alice outyielded Wendy, Wesley, Expedition, Trego, and Arapahoe, but yielded less than Millennium.

In USDA tests Alice was found to be resistant to moderately resistant to stem rust of two common pathotypes, but was found to be moderately susceptible to moderately resistant to another common pathotype. Seedling tests show Alice is susceptible to the Great Plains biotype of Hessian fly. Alice is slightly resistant to wheat streak mosaic virus.

Alice had very good milling and baking scores in cooperative baking tests by the USDA Agricultural Research Service Hard Winter Wheat Quality Laboratory in Manhattan, Kan. In Wheat Quality Council tests in 2004 its bread baking quality was found to be better than all hard winter wheat experimental lines and checks including Tandem. Alice was found to be acceptable for Chinese raw noodles and Thailand bamee noodles.

Millers and growers can get a more complete description of the wheat varieties by contacting the breeder, SDSU associate professor Amir Ibrahim. Reach him by e-mail at Amir.Ibrahim@sdstate.edu or by visiting his Web site, http://plantsci.sdstate.edu/triticum/index.htm.