Agricultural News
Talking About the OSU Wheat Variety Success Story with Mark Hodges In the Field
Sun, 27 Mar 2016 05:38:19 CDT
Last month, Oklahoma Genetics, Inc. presented a royalty check for $643,739.89 from seed sales of wheat varieties developed by Oklahoma State University's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources to OSU President Burns Hargis and the OSU Agricultural Experiment Station. In presenting the largest check ever given by OGI to OSU, OGI Executive Director Mark Hodges credited the OSU Wheat Improvement Team and its lead researcher, Brett Carver, for not only breeding high quality varieties, but building key relationships with producers, as well as those on the milling and baking side of the industry.
"Wheat breeding is not just a science, it's an art, and Dr. Carver has made a concentrated effort to address the needs of the entire wheat industry," Hodges said. "We've come up with some very unique marketing strategies to be successful, but without the breeder we'd have nothing."
The 2016 check was over a hundred thousand dollars larger than the 2015 royalty payment made to the University, $539,169.08 was paid last February by Oklahoma Genetics to OSU for wheat seed sales.
Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays talked with Hodges about this check given for the sales of wheat seed this past fall to OSU on his In the Field TV segment this past Saturday morning- and you can see their on camera conversation by clicking on the PLAY button in the video box below.
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Mark and Ron also talked off camera about the wheat varieties developed by Dr. Brett Carver and his team. Currently, wheat varieties developed by OSU account for more than 40 percent of Oklahoma wheat acres and 15 percent of acres in the southern Great Plains, totaling about 3.1 million acres of wheat. This is a significant shift considering 10 years ago most of the wheat acres in the state were sown to varieties bred at Kansas State University or by private industry. Hodges tells the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network that the increasing market share is even more impressive when you realize that acres planted were down by eight percent in the three major southern hard red winter wheat states in the fall of 2015.
And Hodges pointed to the hard red winter wheat variety Bentley as one that has a lot of interest among wheat growers for its potential winterhardiness. And, Hodges is excited about the newest variety that has been released by OSU- Stardust. He says that the oppportunity for Hard Wheat in Oklahoma is better than ever with the release of Stardust, as it has sprouting resistance which will allow it to compete with HRW wheat in north central Oklahoma, where ADM has just added hard white milling capacity in Enid over the last couple of years. Most of the wheat they are taking in comes from Kansas- but Hodges has hopes that significant acres will be dedicated to Stardust, which could generate a premium over hard red winter production.
Hodges and Hays also talk about the seed supply for next fall, and while it is early, Hodges is hopeful the 200 growers who have contracted with Oklahoma Genetics will have a good year- and will be able to deliver more bushels of all of the varieties they have under license from OSU. He mentions a lot of demand this past season sold out available supplies of Doublestop, and that Gallahger was also in high demand. He expects a lot of interest this coming summer/fall in the new variety Bentley.
To hear their full off camera conversation, click on the LISTEN BAR below .
To learn more about the varieties that Oklahoma Genetics represents on behalf of the OSU Wheat Improvement Team, click here.
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