USA - Northern plains will get Syngenta’s first hybrid spring wheats in 2024

By Bill Spiegel

By this time next year, spring wheat growers in the Northern Plains will have limited access to the very first commercial hybrid wheat lines from Syngenta. It’s been a long journey to get to this point.

In 2010, Syngenta announced it would begin working on hybrid wheat for North America. Hybrid wheat has been elusive for years, despite seed companies spending resources on the commodity.

While BASF announced it was exiting hybrid wheat development in February, Syngenta is pressing on.

″For years we’ve been at meetings where we said hybrid wheat was five years away, and a few years later we were still five years away,″ says Paul Morano, North America cereals head at Syngenta. "Now we’re glad to say we can do away with that statement, because we’re in the field seeing hybrid wheat growing.″

Select Syngenta associates received some hybrid seed in 2022, giving them a chance to see the hybrid technology in action.

″They got a chance to see what it looked like and touch and feel it on a few hundred acres,″ Morano says.

Some producers will get a chance to grow hybrid wheat commercially in 2024 as Syngenta builds the quantity of seed available. Morano believes there will be enough seed for about 1,000 acres. In 2025, Morano expects two hybrids to be available for a full launch of the hybrid wheats in the Northern Plains.

WINTER WHEAT REGION NEXT

For hard red winter wheat growers, Syngenta’s schedule is about a year behind. Associates will be able to see hybrid winter wheat genetics in ″Learning Launches″ in 2024, in limited supply for 2025, and, a commercial launch in 2026. Morano expects two hybrid wheats to make the official launch for 2026.

The initial launch is the first step in a journey, adds Jon Rich, hybrid wheat operations head at Syngenta.

″We feel like this launch is the culmination of our work, but in a way it’s just the beginning. From a Research and Development perspective, we have to have a pipeline. It’s not just the first hybrids, it’s what’s coming behind it, Hybrid 2.0 and 3.0.″

Rich expects hybrid wheats to result in a 10% to 12% yield increase over varietal wheat. But hybrids offer additional advantages, including yield consistency from year to year, disease and insect resistance, and quality improvement.

″We’re looking at sustainability traits, such as nitrogen use efficiency and water use efficiency, but we don’t have a lot of data on that right now,″ he adds. ″But that’s something that could be very valuable in the future.

″As we start to learn about this technology – and what else it can deliver to the farmer above and beyond yield, and how can we leverage the other inputs they put onto their crop – that’s a really big deal.″

Read more at Successful Farming.