The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the crop at 34 per cent good to excellent as of April 12, down one point from the previous week and 13 points below last year. The worst conditions were in Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas at below 20 per cent, where dry conditions have affected quality. Meanwhile, 11 per cent of the nation’s crop was headed, compared to the five-year average of seven per cent.

• For daily market updates, visit The Western Producer Markets Desk

Scott Capinegro, hedging specialist for AgMarket.net, said that just like the weather, crop ratings are likely to change. He added that plantings for other crops could also be affected.

“We might have seen the top end for corn acres and we might have seen the low end for (soybean) acres for all we know. If it stays wet, there will be switching and there always is,” Capinegro said.

The USDA reported corn planting was at five per cent complete, compared to the five-year average of four per cent. For soybeans, six per cent of the crop was seeded, triple the average. Projected corn and soybean acres are 95.3 million and 84.7 million, respectively.

“The Delta is going in pretty well for beans and it seems like that’s what farmers are doing again. If you can go, put beans in as fast as you can first,” Capinegro said.

Prices for Kansas City hard red winter and Minneapolis spring wheat varieties rose on April 13 and 14 due to dry conditions over much of the U.S. But the trade is keeping one eye on the ongoing war in Iran.

“Just the last few days, it seems like grains are trying to break away from the oil market,” Capinegro said. “I think that’s because we’re going to start being more concerned about planting conditions, the rain and dryness.”

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Some 20 miles away, at a research center in Junction City, scientists are developing hybrid wheat seeds that promise higher, more consistent crop yields as drought becomes more common across the Plains.

Taken together, the experiments could change the future of the struggling U.S. wheat industry, which is being threatened by shifting consumer trends and the rise of lower-cost global rivals eroding America’s export dominance. The U.S. economic prospects for wheat, a crop that’s been cultivated for 10,000 years, hang in the balance.

Wheat not ‘technified’

When it comes to technology, for decades wheat has been the horse-and-buggy to its sports car brethren, corn and soybeans. And American farmers have been growing less of the crop, sometimes planting it only in rotation with other crops to preserve soil health.

But hybrid wheat is finally becoming more widely available, and genetically modified varieties may launch in the U.S. within a few years. The push represents a bet that the science will arrive in time to make it profitable enough to matter for growers.

“Wheat hasn’t been, for lack of a better word, a technified crop,” said Jon Rich, Syngenta’s hybrid wheat operations head, who has spent years developing the product.

Wheat buyers have been more resistant to GMO wheat due in part to consumer skepticism, while most GMO corn and soybeans are used as feed for animals.

Shrinking demand

Once the world’s top wheat exporter, the U.S. has not held that title since 2017, according to federal data. Farmers are grappling with a three-decade downtrend in per-capita flour consumption, a trend reinforced by the Trump administration’s new federal dietary guidelines and the rise of gluten-free diets.

Things are trending differently in Canada, where mills produced 2.68 million tonnes of wheat flour in 2025, a 7.7 per cent increase over 2024 levels.

Wheat industry millers and scientists who gathered for an annual meeting last month in Olathe, Kansas, said the new guidelines stigmatize grain-based foods, further diminishing the market.

“The fact that we are having to say ‘bread is real food’ – it’s unfortunate,” said Jane DeMarchi, president of the North American Millers’ Association.

The United States became a corn-growing behemoth in part due to an early 20th-century breakthrough that has eluded wheat: hybrid seeds, which yield more grain even under stressful conditions such as drought. Average U.S. corn yields rose from around 25 bushels an acre in the 1930s to 186.5 bushels in 2025.

Corteva says it ‘cracked the code’ on hybrid wheat

Creating a hybrid wheat seed isn’t as simple. The seeds and plants are much smaller than corn and have more complex genetics, making hybridization efforts costly for companies to develop and sell.

But recent scientific advances in DNA sequencing have lowered costs for breeders, triggering a boom in research and commercialization efforts. Seed and chemical companies Syngenta and Corteva are pushing forward in the U.S., projecting billion-dollar payouts – eventually.

Chuck Magro, Corteva’s chief executive, says the company has “cracked the code,” and that its hybrid hard red winter wheat used to make bread can increase crop yields by 20 per cent. Corteva plans to release the seed commercially in the U.S. in 2027.

Syngenta, the Swiss agrichemicals and seeds group of China’s state-owned Sinochem, has been selling hybrid spring wheat seed to farmers in the northern Plains states since 2023, reaching 12,000 to 15,000 acres in 2025. Still, that’s a fraction of the 45 million U.S. wheat acres seeded annually.

Syngenta and Corteva also are working on other hybrids, including for soft wheat used in pastries and Asian-style noodles, in coming years. But it’s a gamble if farmers will be willing to pay for seeds that can cost twice as much as conventional offerings.

GMO crops

The vast majority of U.S. corn and soybeans are grown from genetically modified seeds that offer built-in herbicide tolerance and resistance to yield-robbing pests. That is one hope for wheat too, scientists said, and GMO technology could eventually offer traits that boost nutrition or grain quality, too.

“Anything that gives our producers an advantage can improve profitability – that would be welcome,” said Allan Fritz, a longtime wheat breeder with Kansas State University.

The plants in the Manhattan, Kansas, lab have been genetically modified with a drought-resistant trait known as HB4, developed by Argentina’s Bioceres Crop Solutions, and bred to tolerate a particular herbicide not currently used on wheat. While that grain was approved for U.S. production by the USDA in 2024, none has been planted on U.S. fields.

Genetic lines of wheat vary by region, so public university researchers are testing whether the HB4 traits will function in wheat grown in the U.S. Plains. Field trials are still at least two years away, according to Brad Erker of the Colorado Wheat Research Foundation, a farmer-governed trade group that has partnered with Bioceres to commercialize HB4 in the U.S.

Selling GMO wheat seed is even further off, by 2030 or 2032 at the earliest, Erker said, and will only occur if major buyers of U.S. wheat, such as Japan and Mexico, agree to allow purchases.

“That’s part of the goal with this, to make it more attractive to grow wheat,” said Erker. “We don’t have GMO technology for our farmers in wheat, and corn and soy and sunflowers and sugarbeets and cotton all do.”

—With files from Glacier FarmMedia

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The Canadian Wheat Research Coalition, which represents farmer-led organizations in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, has concluded that Canada’s wheat breeding system is “no longer working.”

In a report published Feb. 26, the CWRC said farmers and other players need to join forces and build something better.

“Securing the future of wheat in Canada requires a reimagining of our wheat breeding innovation system,” says the report.

“The CWRC has a lead role to play in securing the future for wheat in Canada and is currently exploring options to transform the wheat breeding innovation system.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Wheat (spring wheat and durum) is the largest acreage crop in Western Canada and farmers rely heavily on varieties developed by Agricutlure Canada scientists.

Jocelyn Velestuk, who chairs the CWRC and farms near Broadview, Sask., said it’s unclear what transforming the system will look like, but it will be a collaborative process.

“We will be including stakeholders,” she said.

The CWRC, a coalition of Alberta Grains, SaskWheat and the Manitoba Crop Alliance, began working on the wheat breeding report last fall.

It evaluated the current system, which is dominated by breeding programs at Agriculture Canada.

Every year, about 80 per cent of all wheat fields in Canada have an AAFC variety.

Much of the coalition’s work and consultations with 29 stakeholders was done before late January, when Agriculture Canada announced cuts and closures of research centres across the country.

In its report, the CWRC described the five steps in the wheat breeding process:

• foundational science
• germplasm enhancement
• variety development
• pre-market evaluation and testing
• commercialization

The weakness in Canada’s system are steps three and four, Velestuk said.

“The places we found the biggest gaps were in variety development and pre-market evaluation and testing.”

That’s partly explained by federal budget cuts in 2012 when Agriculture Canada closed a research centre in Winnipeg and testing sites in Manitoba and Regina.

“(A) loss of 60,000 plots and reduced (the) number of early generation breeding lines under evaluation,” the report says.

Breeder says change is needed

Richard Cuthbert, a former wheat breeder with Agriculture Canada in Swift Current, Sask., says the public system to develop wheat varieties has lost “capacity.”

The number of small plots for testing potential varieties across a wide a wide range of geographic, climate and soil types in Western Canada has shrunk over the last 15 years.

A breeder needs sufficient data from dozens of sites and hundreds of thousands of small plots to make informed choices and bring game changing varieties to market.

“It’s a fact that we need more capacity and capacity is costly,” said Cuthbert, who resigned from Agriculture Canada in January.

“That’s been lost along the way… (and) taken for granted that small plot (research) will just happen. Disease nurseries (will) just happen. Quality testing (will) just happen.”

What’s next?

The CWRC plans to play a lead role in what happens with wheat breeding in Canada. There are funding agreements in place with Agriculture Canada and universities on the Prairies to continue breeding and varietal development research until 2028.

The immediate next steps are conversations between the Wheat Research Coalition and Agriculture Canada, Velestuk said.

Growers, breeders, seed companies and others will be part of the discussions to design a new funding model and approach to breeding and varietal development.

How that will turn ou, is hard to say, but the final line in the CWRC report delivers a clear message.

“The future of wheat breeding in Canada is in the hands of farmers.”

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Cuthbert has been at the centre since April 2011 after taking over from well-known breeder Ron DePauw.

SaskWheat chair Jake Leguee said the resignation was a surprise and is a loss for producers.

“The work that he’s done has been really tremendous,” Leguee said in an interview with Golden West radio in Swift Current. “These are big shoes to fill and for our part that’s not something we can control. We’ll be monitoring this news and seeing where things go from here.”

Canada requires a strong public breeding program, and Leguee said SaskWheat has long advocated for openings to be filled.

“We need these positions,” he said.

“They’re absolutely critical to the entire breeding program in Western Canada.”

The Wheat Growers Association said it’s worried Cuthbert’s departure is a sign of things to come as Agriculture Canada is forced to make cuts.

Executive director Darcy Pawlik said Cuthbert was “one of our best and brightest wheat breeders who all of western Canadian farmers really rely on for the genetics that get planted every year.”

He said the apparent absence of a succession plan could be a problem.

In an op-ed piece issued Jan. 12, Pawlik said the 15 per cent federal budget cuts come on top of nearly 10 years of funding pressure on public wheat breeding. Grower commissions have stepped up to fill the gap, indicating they know what’s at stake, he said.

There is no indication at this time that Cuthbert’s resignation is due to budget cuts.

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Researchers at the university used CRISPR gene editing technology to increase a naturally-occurring chemical that allows the wheat to fix nitrogen according to a November 25 report from ScienceDaily.

WHY IT MATTERS: Nitrogen fertilizer is an enormous cost for Canadian farmers — not to mention a source of tension due to potential environmental impacts.

“For decades, scientists have been trying to develop cereal crops that produce active root nodules, or trying to colonize cereals with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, without much success. We used a different approach,” said Eduardo Blumwald in the report.

Blumwald is a distinguished professor in the University of California, Davis plant sciences department.

“We said the location of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria is not important, so long as the fixed nitrogen can reach the plant, and the plant can use it.”

Researchers, led by Blumwald, examined 2,800 chemicals that plants make naturally and identified 20 that could encourage nitrogen-fixing bacteria to form biofilms, the report said.

Biofilms are sticky coatings that wrap around the bacteria and produce a low-oxygen environment suitable for nitrogen fixation.

The team identified the genes involved in the process of making these biofilms. They then edited the wheat plants to create more of the related compound, called apigenin. The plants produce more apigenin than they need and the excess is released into the soil.

In experiments, the surplus stimulated soil bacteria to protective biofilms that allowed them to fix nitrogen in a form usable to the wheat plants.

Blumenwald noted that about 500 million acres are planted with cereals in the U.S.

“Imagine, if you could save 10 per cent of the amount of fertilizer being used on that land,” he said. “I’m calculating conservatively: That should be a savings of more than a billion dollars every year.”

The advancement could also support farmers in developing countries.

“In Africa, people don’t use fertilizers because they don’t have money, and farms are small, not larger than six to eight acres,” Blumwald said. “Imagine, you are planting crops that stimulate bacteria in the soil to create the fertilizer that the crops need, naturally. Wow! That’s a big difference!”

The university has a pending patent application for the wheat. Bayer Crop Science provided some of the research funding.

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In a Sept. 11 release, the CWRC said they have engaged a third party to review the system and how well it can meet the needs of Canadian farmers.

Why it matters: Better yields, pests, disease resistance and crop resilience are among the wheat breeding priorities in Canada right now.

The collaborative group tapped consulting firm Synthesis Agri-Food Network for the work, the release noted.

“Canadian farmers need a wheat breeding innovation system that is globally competitive, prevents technology gaps and maintains choice and competition in the marketplace,” wrote Dean Hubbard, CWRC chair and a farmer near Claresholm, Alta.

Launched in 2017, the CWRC is a collaboration between Manitoba Crop Alliance, SaskWheat and Alberta Grains and is meant to enable a collaborative take producer-funded research projects aimed at variety development and agronomy.

The collaboration invests more than $9.5 million per year on behalf of western Canadian farmers and engages in core breeding agreements (CBA) with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre, the University of Manitoba and the University of Alberta.

“Since the introduction of the CBA model, farmers have become a key funding partner for public wheat breeding in Canada, with their contributions representing almost half of the estimated total public varietal research and development costs,” the release noted.

That’s translated to registration of more than 40 new wheat varieties across multiple wheat classes. The results of a recent study revealed farmers have received $33 in benefits for every dollar invested in wheat breeding from 1995 to 2020.

“As farmers, we have contributed a lot of our hard-earned dollars to this important research and the CWRC must ensure those dollars are directed wherever they will produce the largest impact,” said Hubbard. “This review represents a proactive approach to ensuring farmer investments in public breeding programs continue to produce strong results we can see firsthand in our fields.”

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However, Bryan Strommen of Progressive Ag in Fargo, North Dakota cited multiple reasons for wheat’s gains: worsened crop conditions, conflicts in eastern Europe and the Middle East and excessive moisture affecting the winter wheat harvest in Kansas and Oklahoma.

“It’s too wet in some areas to get into the Delta and (other) southern parts of the (U.S.) as well,” Strommen said. “Even southern Minnesota had 13 inches of rain over the last four days in some areas.”

Wheat growers in western North Dakota told Strommen their yields are 80 per cent of normal so far this year due to dryness. Meanwhile, soybean growers are waiting for favourable weather for its crop to “take off”, he added.

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s crop acreage and stocks reports are released on June 30, Strommen expects a mixed bag.

“Stocks might be a little tighter for corn. I think demand’s been good and stocks were tight going into this growing season,” he said. “Demand hasn’t been good for soybeans and wheat. We’ll see what numbers they come out with.”

Strommen added that tariff talks between China and the U.S. could affect grain prices, especially for soybeans, before the end of the month. Weather could also alter the trajectories for grain prices.

“Weather and then that report will play a big part over the next month,” he said.

Most U.S. markets will be closed on June 19 for the Juneteenth holiday.

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Warm and dry conditions have not hindered seeding for Western Canadian wheat, but it remains to be seen whether it will be affected by heat stress.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Grain Commission reported 483,100 tonnes of wheat were exported during the week ended May 25, down from 622,900 the week before. With 10 weeks left in the marketing year, 17.908 million tonnes of wheat were exported, compared to 17.619 million one year earlier.

In the U.S., the spring wheat crop was 87 per cent planted but it was rated at 45 per cent good to excellent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, well below the trade’s expectations of 70 per cent. The U.S. winter wheat crop was rated 52 per cent good to excellent. However, lower export prices in Russia and a lack of supply concerns in Australia and India have put pressure on world prices.

Canadian Western Red Spring wheat was up C$5.60 to C$7.00 per tonne, according to price quotes from a cross-section of delivery points compiled by PDQ (Price and Data Quotes). Average prices were between C$295.10/tonne in southeast Saskatchewan to C$321.70 in southern Alberta.

Quoted basis levels ranged from between C$67.80 to C$94.40/tonne above the futures when using the grain company methodology of quoting the basis as the difference between the U.S. dollar denominated futures and the Canadian dollar cash bids.

Accounting for exchange rates and adjusting Canadian prices to U.S. dollars (C$1=US$0.7243), CWRS bids were from US$213.70 to US$223/tonne. Currency adjusted basis levels ranged from US$13.50 below the futures to US$5.70 above them. If the futures were converted to Canadian dollars, basis levels would be C$9.80 below the futures to C$4.20 above.

Meanwhile, CPRS prices were down C$2.10 to up C$0.20 per tonne. The lowest average bid for CPRS was C$267.60 in southeast Saskatchewan, while the highest average bid was C$290.30 in southern Alberta.

The average prices for Canada Western Amber Durum (CWAD) were down C$0.30 to up C$16.60 per tonne with bids between C$340.40 in northwest Saskatchewan to C$351.90 in southern Alberta.

The July spring wheat contract in Minneapolis, which most CWRS contracts are based off of, was quoted at US$6.1550 per bushel on May 29, up 15.25 cents.

The Kansas City hard red winter wheat futures, which are now traded in Chicago, are more closely linked to CPSR in Canada. The July contract was down 8.25 cents at US$5.3175/bu.

The July Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) wheat contract lost 10.5 cents at US$5.34/bu.

The Canadian dollar advanced 0.33 of a cent to close at 72.43 U.S. cents on May 29.

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“The annual meeting is designed to evaluate data generated on candidate cultivars developed by plant breeders and move them forward through the registration process, ultimately recommending them for registration if they meet the required quality criteria,” says Elaine Sopiwnyk, Cigi’s director of grain quality. Recommendations were also made for registering lines of pulses, oats, barley, flax and canary seed.

Four committees are responsible for the testing, evaluation and recommendation of grain crop candidate cultivars for registration in Western Canada. This includes the Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye and Triticale comprising three teams covering quality, disease and agronomics.

“Five technical staff from Cigi are involved in the wheat quality side as are representatives from the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC), industry and universities,” Sopiwnyk says, noting that Cigi conducts analytical testing and evaluation of end-product quality in baking and noodles or pasta.

Cigi CEO JoAnne Buth says that Cigi represents the end-use customer at the table.

“Staff voice their expertise when it comes to how the varieties perform in bread, pasta and noodles. Their understanding of the quality parameters and end-use customers are the strengths that we bring.”

Once a line is recommended for registration the breeder can submit it to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency which oversees the variety registration process, and then the CGC will place the variety in the appropriate wheat class.

New wheat class

This year a focus of the meeting was on the new milling wheat class established by the CGC — Canadian Northern Hard Red (CNHR) — which takes effect August 1, 2016, Sopiwnyk says. “This was part of the wheat class modernization strategy. In order to improve the quality and consistency within the CWRS class, wheat varieties with weaker gluten strength will be removed from CWRS and moved into CNHR.”

She says that even after a variety is recommended, it will take a number of years before suitable seed quantities are available and the variety is taken up by producers to represent any significant proportion of crop production in Western Canada.

Buth adds the recommending process may take time but it is important to provide farmers with the best wheat varieties possible while meeting customer needs.

This year Cigi also participated on the quality evaluation subcommittee of the Prairie Recommending Committee for Pulses and Special Crops which recommended for registration 14 lines of peas, beans and lentils, in addition to one line of canary seed.

“Our presence on the committee is important as the Cigi pulse team carries out work related to seed quality from processing through to end-product utilization,” says Peter Frohlich, project manager of pulses and special crops at Cigi. “Because we undertake pulse ingredient development and processing we have a strong connection with the end-users.”

Frohlich says this year offered some excellent presentations and other discussion focused on the importance of protein levels in pulses, specifically in peas going into the market.

“Traditionally there’s been a huge focus on yield when coming up with new varieties which makes sense as higher-yielding varieties will generate more profit. However, with higher yields you also lose a little bit on the quantity of protein. And one of the main reasons pulse flour is used as an ingredient is for the nutritional aspect which includes protein.”

Frohlich says that producers want to grow the best pulse varieties possible and that breeders aim to make sure they are satisfied with the lines available to them.

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Options in the report, from the newly-formed Wheat and Barley Variety Working Group, range from improving the way information is shared, to creating a new producer group to co-ordinate research — or even starting a new producer-owned cereal breeding company.

“Farmers’ interest is in seeing wheat and barley remain competitive in rotations over the long term,” says Garth Patterson, executive director of the Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF), the agency that co-ordinated the new study.

Variety development research is needed, to make sure new cereal varieties with higher yields and disease resistance continue to be available.

The challenge is that wheat and barley are self-pollinating crops, less attractive to private-sector breeders than crops such as canola. Because farmers can save wheat and barley seed from year to year with minimal yield losses, they don’t need to pay for certified seed annually, and private-sector breeders find it difficult to recoup investments.

Neither the report’s authors nor the commissions involved recommend one particular option — just that farmers read the report, think about the issues and discuss the possibilities over the winter at producer meetings and commission AGMs.

Why now?

The commissions involved started discussing the need for this work about a year ago, Patterson says. “The driver here has been the changes to the wheat and barley checkoff.”

With the removal of the Canadian Wheat Board, new wheat and barely commissions and associations have been created across the Prairie provinces, funded through farmer levies on the sale of wheat and barley.

Until July 31, 2017, farmers also pay levies to the WGRF (56 cents per tonne of barley and 48 cents per tonne of wheat — except in Alberta, where farmers pay four cents per tonne of wheat to the WGRF, and $1 per tonne to their provincial wheat commission).

After July 31, 2017, it’s not clear if the WGRF levy will be discontinued or transferred to provincial commissions, or if another option will be found. For now, research will continue using the WGRF’s financial reserves. “We’re just finalizing five-year agreements to the end of 2019,” Patterson says.

Other regulatory changes have also led to the need for this study. There have been changes to the federal Plants Breeders Rights Act, designed to encourage increased investment. There is a possibility that end point royalties (EPR) — a system in which farmers would pay a variety royalty fee when they deliver their production — may be implemented in the future.

The study outlines two strategic choices farmers need to make. This first is “how should farmers be involved in varietal development?” Should farmers own assets? How much research should farmers fund through levies?

The second strategic question is “Should farmers support an EPR system?” Under such a system, farmers would pay royalties for the use of seed when they sold their production. This would increase farmers’ costs, but also provide more funding for cereal breeding.

The study

The study, “Exploring Options for Producer Involvement in Wheat and Barley Variety Development” was prepared by Ontario-based JRG Consulting Group.

The Wheat and Barley Variety Working Group, which commissioned the study, includes representatives from Alberta Barley, Alberta Wheat, the B.C. Grain Producers Association, Manitoba Wheat and Barley Association, SaskBarley Development Commission, SaskWheat Development Commission, Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission, WGRF and Winter Cereals Manitoba.

This leads to the need for a lot of logos on the final report. Patterson says the organizations are “very committed to working together and looking at this with a western Canadian approach.”

Patterson compares investing in variety research to investing for your retirement. It can take years for a new variety to come to the market — but new high-yielding varieties can make a big impact to farm economics.

“The little things you do now can have a big impact,” he says. “We don’t want to be 20 years down the road and say ‘This is how farmers might have positioned themselves in supporting wheat and barley breeding.'”

— Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews based at Griffin, Sask. Follow her at @GrainMuse on Twitter.

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