Agricultural News
Oklahoma Genetics Variety Spotlight - Ruby Lee
Wed, 30 Jul 2014 20:41:02 CDT
As wheat planting plans come into focus, the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and Oklahoma Farm Report.com want to help you consider how the genetics developed by Dr. Brett Carver and his Wheat Improvement Team may fit into your wheat production system. A profile of several of the major wheat varieties that have come from the Oklahoma State University program will be offered for the next few weeks. To hear an audio version of this story Click on the LISTEN Bar at the bottom of this story. Today, we showcase the variety
Ruby Lee.
Ruby Lee's parentage goes back to Endurance and an experimental line from the US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service laboratory located in Manhattan, Kan. This combination provided the variety with wide adaptation along with its ability to produce yields and improve on the end quality. In looking at the potential for Ruby Lee, Carver sees this variety has the potential to replace Billings in terms of quality.
"Some of the characteristics we rely upon in bread making are much stronger in Ruby Lee," Carver said. "In fact we consider Ruby Lee our gold standard now for bread baking."
Ruby Lee carries on better protection from pests like barley yellow dwarf and also protection for Spindle Streak Mosaic. Carver says the one covet to Ruby Lee is that it can be overwhelmed by an epidemic of stripe rust. He said this variety can handle a light infection of stripe rust, but with a heavy infection it will not have the same level as protection, as a variety such as Gallagher.
OSU Wheat Extension Specialist Dr. Jeff Edwards considers Ruby Lee to be one of his favorite varieties because of its versatility and yield potential.
"I have always thought of it as a race horse variety," Edwards said. "It's a variety that if you're willing to apply a fungicide and give it the fertility that it needs that just really has a lot of fuel in the tank in and can produce very well in intensively managed or higher yielding situations."
Ruby Lee has top end yield potential while producing good test weight and seed size. With all of those attributes, Edwards said farmers often forget that Ruby Lee is also a good forage producer in those grazing situations.
"It's a very good fall forage producer," Edwards said. "A little earlier to first hollow stem than something like Duster, but as long as you get the cattle off in time it will bounce back and perform well in gazed systems and I think that is some of that Endurance parentage coming through."
In the 2014 OSU wheat variety trial, Edwards was pleased how well Ruby Lee handled the drought this year. Ruby Lee came in at the top of some trials, while others it was closer to the middle. He attributes its performance to the spring freezes, especially the one on April 15th. Ruby Lee is considered one of the earlier maturing varieties, similar to Everest or Gallagher.
"In years where you have a spring freeze it can get hit a little harder than some of the other varieties just because it's early," Edwards said.
In featuring Oklahoma Genetics Inc. varieties, we previously highlighted the variety Duster with Dr. Carver and Dr. Edwards. Click here to read or to listen to our feature on Duster.
You can find results of the 2014 OSU wheat variety trail by going by Clicking Here
Click here for the OSU informational brochure for Ruby Lee.
Click Here for more information from Oklahoma Genetics Inc.
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