Winter wheat growers need to deal with the CDC Falcon issue if they hope to improve the end-use quality of the Canada Western Red Winter Select class.

This issue was raised during the Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission meeting Monday at Crop Week in Saskatoon. The Canadian Wheat Board is trying to sell Canada Western Red Winter (CWRW) Select wheat in a market dominated by U.S. Hard Red Winter.

The challenge, according to Michael Lackmanec, the CWB’s director of marketing strategy, is that U.S. HRW has consistently higher protein -- a key indicator of milling quality -- and annual volumes of 30 million tonnes or so. Canada produces about one million tonnes of CWRW with protein down around 11 per cent. Millers and bakers in this market are looking for a consistent supply of mid-quality milling wheat in high volumes and at a decent price. CWRW Select has a hard time competing.

So Western Canada’s winter wheat growers have to improve their product quality if they want to sell winter wheat into the milling market.

Therein lies the issue with CDC Falcon. It, along with four other less-popular varieties, has poor milling quality yet is still in the CWRW class. Granted, it’s not on the Select list, so it rarely gets selected for the milling market, but its presence in the class suggests that Western Canada is not really serious about developing a milling market for winter wheat. That’s the argument. “We want to cruise forward rather than sputter,” Lackmanec says.

Michael Lackmanec, the Canadian Wheat Board’s director of marketing strategy, explained to members of the Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission why CDC Falcon hurts the Canadian Western Red Winter class. -- Jay Whetter photo

The CWB has proposed two options:

Option 1 is to demote CDC Falcon, CDC Clair, CDC Harrier, Kestrel and Raptor to the Canada Western General Purpose (GP) class.

Simple. Problem solved. Growers can still grow these varieties and sell them into feed markets as they’ve always done. The CWRW class is cleaned up…

Oh, but not so fast. CDC Falcon is far and away the most popular winter wheat in Manitoba, accounting for 68 per cent of acres. Demote Falcon to GP and Manitoba Winter Cereals Inc.’s checkoff is gutted to the bone.

Without Falcon checkoff money, Manitoba Winter Cereals can’t fund important research programs. Without research, winter wheat production fades. And since Manitoba accounts for a large percentage of winter wheat acres in Western Canada, winter cereals growers across the Prairies are willing to compromise.

Enter Option 2. Leave Falcon on the CWRW list for a couple years, then cut it loose. In that time, Manitoba growers, with help from breeders, will have to adopt a milling-quality replacement.

That’s easier said than done, since new and high-quality winter wheat varieties are hard to come by these days. Rob Graf, a breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Lethbridge, has a new variety, Broadview, but it’s a GP and doesn’t help as a Falcon replacement.

However, his W434 is eligible for the Select group. It also has protein of 12.3 per cent compared to 11.2 for the checks, yield 104 per cent of checks, and sufficient rust resistance for Manitoba. That will be the variety to watch.

-- Jay Whetter is editor of Grainews.