The 2018 Ontario winter wheat performance trials have been posted, but don’t look for great differences in disease tolerance in this year’s numbers.
This growing season was good for growers, but not for researchers looking to differentiate among wheat varieties resistant to disease, said Ellen Sparry, general manager at C&M Seeds and performance trial co-ordinator for the Ontario Cereals Committee.
“We didn’t see as much differentiation among varieties versus other years when had higher disease pressure,” she said.
Sparry encourages farmers to look at multiple years of data when looking at winter wheat varieties.
Read Also
Senft to step down as CEO of Seeds Canada
Barry Senft, the founding CEO of the five-year-old Seeds Canada organization is stepping down as of January 2026.
The high yielding varieties will float to the top most years, so looking at multiple years will give better overall trend information.
It’s easy to compare the varieties over years through the digital tools at the gocereals.ca website, where the winter wheat performance trials are housed. Longer term comparisons head to head can help determine decisions on disease-susceptible and tolerant lines, without strong data from this year.
There are few changes in the presentation of the data this year, although Sparry said there is more straw data available.
