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Effort to Put Whole Grains on Shelves, Plates Gets Major Boost

PULLMAN, Wash. — A major Washington State University initiative will receive a $19 million boost to put more healthy, climate-friendly whole grains on people’s plates — funding that will sustain every step in a statewide network from the field to the fork.

The $10 million BioInnovation Grant from the Washington Research Foundation is matched with funds from several other organizations, including more than $3 million from the Washington Grain Commission. The public-private partnership will enable the creation of WSU’s planned Center for Health, Environment, Food and Farming to build and sustain its activities.

The funding will allow WSU researchers to continue developing new crop varieties for farmers. It will fuel efforts to bring more whole grains to the public, including into school lunchrooms. It will expand Washington state’s commercial infrastructure for storing, transporting, milling and marketing whole grains. And it will support the establishment of a commercial kitchen at the University of Washington to help entrepreneurs bring whole-grain foods to market — from pancakes to pizzas to ready-to-eat meals.

Only the Best -Collaboration Helps Bring High Quality Spring Wheat Varieties to Farmers’ Fields

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) grain industry is known for high-quality wheat, and Washington growers have earned that reputation after prioritizing and investing in countless ways over decades. The most discriminating local-to-international markets are consistently supplied by our state’s farmers. The quality of what we produce today is built upon decades of improvement in all parts of the supply chain, and future quality depends on what we do today.

New Spring Wheat Variety Named for Pioneering Black Family

Washington State University’s newest spring wheat variety honors a pioneering Black family whose contributions to farming, community building and civic service in the 1800s helped shape the Pacific Northwest.

Bush soft white spring wheat recognizes the contributions of settler George Bush and his family of skilled farmers who aided indigenous populations battling disease, saved fellow settlers during the famine of 1852 and helped develop what’s now the City of Tumwater. One of his sons, William Owen Bush, was a highly successful wheat breeder and state legislator who helped establish the future Washington State University.

Demonstrated Impact – WGC Recognizes Work of WSU Spring Wheat Breeder, ROI to Washington Growers

The Washington Grain Commission (WGC) is recognizing Washington State University (WSU) spring wheat breeder Mike Pumphrey and celebrating his contributions to the Washington wheat industry. Pumphrey is a professor for WSU’s crop and soil sciences department and, until this year, co-held the O.A. Vogel Chair of Wheat Breeding and Genetics with WSU winter wheat breeder Arron Carter.

A Syrian Seed Bank’s Fight to Survive

The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, known as icarda, is housed in a cluster of small buildings on a dusty property in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, halfway between Beirut and Damascus. Its facilities, surrounded by fields of experimental grain, include a laboratory, nurseries, and a gene bank—a storage facility in which tens of thousands of seeds have been carefully saved and catalogued.

Meet Ryan, WSU’s Elite New Wheat for the Noodle Market

Ryan, the newest spring wheat variety from Washington State University, is winning over Northwest farmers and grain buyers across the Pacific, thanks to its surprising ability to create an outstanding fresh noodle.

“Ryan has hit harder and generated way more interest than anything I’ve done before,” said Mike Pumphrey, WSU’s O.A. Vogel Endowed Chair of Spring Wheat Breeding and Genetics. “What sets Ryan apart is its quite remarkable noodle quality.”

New WSU Soft White Spring Wheat Ryan in High Demand

Seed for a high-yielding new soft white spring wheat variety is in short supply this year, dealers say.

Geoff Schulz, seed operations manager for HighLine Grain Growers in Reardan, Wash., said he’s been sold out of Washington State University’s new soft white spring wheat Ryan for six weeks. He gets calls every day from farmers and other seed companies looking for Ryan and another WSU soft white spring, Seahawk.

Many of the calls come from irrigated farmers who usually plant dark northern spring wheat, he said.

“I could have sold four times as much Ryan as what I had out there, and I thought I was swimming in it,” he said.

WSU’s spring wheat breeder, Mike Pumphrey, pointed to Ryan as the highest-yielding soft white spring wheat in intermediate or high rainfall zone trials in recent years.

Novel Gene Resists Toxic Wheat Disease that Costs Billions

PULLMAN, Wash. – Scientists at Washington State University and Kansas State University have isolated and cloned a gene that provides resistance to Fusarium head blight, or wheat scab, a crippling disease that caused $7.6 billion in losses in U.S. wheat fields between 1993 and 2001.

Mike Pumphrey Received 2015 BGRI Mentor Award

Sydney, Australia — Michael ‘Mike’ Pumphrey, associate professor of wheat breeding and genetics at Washington State University (WSU), was awarded the 2015 Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum Mentor Award during the 2015 Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) Technical Workshop in Sydney, Australia, on September 19, 2015.

WSU Partners with Industry to Market New Wheat Variety

PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University will join forces with AgriPro, a division of Syngenta Cereals, to market a new variety of hard white spring wheat known as Dayn.

New WSU Weather Stations Provide Wheat Data

PROSSER, Wash. – Four new weather stations will provide wheat farmers and breeders with insights into the influence of weather patterns on wheat production and yields in eastern Washington.

High Technology Meets Fields of Wheat

Arron Carter and Mike Pumphrey are two research scientists at Washington State University who are doing work in dusty wheat fields that is being transformed by technology.

Fundraiser, New Wheat Variety Honor Late WSU Graduate Student

PULLMAN, Wash. – Just 18 months after her premature death from cancer in December 2010, Washington State University graduate student Virginia Gale Lee’s dream of making a difference in the world is beginning to come true.

Friends, family and colleagues of Lee gathered Thursday evening to honor her memory with the second annual Dr. Virginia Lee “Change the World” Fellowship Fundraiser. The event raised nearly $5,000, bringing the fellowship endowment to $80,000, more than half of the university’s goal for the fund.

Cereal stem rust widespread in eastern Washington, north Idaho