Sask Wheat Commission and public breeding

[grower99]

Since our federal govt does not support public breeding in cereals can the SWC...use check off dollars to promote public breeding of cereals?

[CptnObvious]

All of the directors campaigned on public breeding and it is my understanding that they are pursuing that course vigorously.

[Nudge]

Wheat is a very expensive crop to breed and even if SWDC spent every nickel on wheat breeding it would accomplish SFA. Better to let the multinationals breed wheat, sure they will make money on it, but so will we. Better for everyone to have a piece of a bigger pie than fighting over share of the current one.

[SASKFARMER3]

Well nudge glad your putting your choice of supplier of wheat seed with bayer, Monsanto etc. f$&k we should be at 70 a acre seed in about 4 years. For shit varieties.

[Guest]

even if they get us to 100 bu /ac , wtf good will it do . do we really need more production . rr's can't begin to handle what we grow now .all it will help is all the leeches. then we can buy more bins to store their grain for sfa

[CptnObvious]

Research is expensive but far from out of reach. $30 mil/year is spent on wheat research, about equal to the total wheat check-off on the prairies.
Corporate research traditionally returns 90% of the profit to the company.

[oneoff]

It isn't as though farmers aren't already paying for every bit of plant breeding already....is it?????
And we will always pay for it one way or another as long as profit matgins are kept in single digits or less.
Wrong idiotic way to look at this issue from any other angle.

[Hopalong]

Think the idea of farmer owned and run is so deep seated that may be best to give it some rope and see if it hangs itself. (Even though I agree with nudge).

[wmoebis]

How many wheat breeders are there including public?

[oneoff]

And just who won't decide that all that extra production shouldn't drive the value to less than input costs.

Can't everyone see that the next round (as past rounds) always ends up with every bushel devalued to some obscene level.

Almost as though farmers are expected to handle twice the volume for less than half the price for each unit.

[farming101]

Wheat breeding should be squarely focused on disease resistance.
Benefits of disease resistance include a healthier crop, less/no fungicides and increased yield.
It would be ridiculous to say we shouldn't breed wheat for disease resistance because that will just produce more wheat and make the marketing problem even worse. No sense to that.

[grower99]

The pulse model of farmer supported breeding works in Sask at the CDC etc

[farmaholic]

farming101, why would the same company that sells fungicides, shitty as some are, want to breed wheat that doesn't require their products?

Do you think they are even remotely interested in the an IPM approach or one where they can sell fungicides and insecticides. I would hope they're responsible enough to aim for the IPM approach.

[Nudge]

Sure a farmer sponsored breeding program is fine as well, and I would think it would fit inside the model of end use royalties. If they succeed that is great, if they don't well they wouldn't have many royalties to fund the next round. Room for everyone really. Let the market decide. Really no different than 'producing' and other piece of technology...some are good and some fail. My guess is that some farmers would grow varieties that supported the public program even if there were other slightly better varieties. The farmer funded model may have a 'moral' advantage!

[farming101]

Farmaholic,
The fungicide advertisements are in the paper already. There's your answer.