Bronze Wheat

The years following the severe losses in yield of winter wheat due to stem rust in 1962 and 1963 have seen the release for production of many varieties that resist stem rust. The South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station released Hume and Winoka and also joined in testing and release of rust resistant varieties developed in neighboring states. The breeding objective in the South Dakota program has been to select early, especially hardy, medium to short strawed lines having resistance to both stem and leaf rust, of good milling and baking qualities and of good yield and test weight. The success of such a program should enable growers to use fall sown wheat ever farther northward and eastward in this state. That such an objective is especially difficult is apparent from the fact that no one has yet developed a variety having to a significant degree all of those qualities. The ability to tiller heavily to fill out a stand depleted by winter losses also is an important trait