$400K grant to help solve preharvest wheat sprouting

Wheat-Spillman-web Crop

Three researchers at Washington State University are using a new $422,000 grant to develop white wheat that better resists pre-harvest sprouting.

Arron Carter, winter wheat breeder with the WSU Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, along with Camille Steber, a molecular geneticist with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and an adjunct professor in CSS, and Zhiwu Zhang, an assistant professor and scientist, in November received funds from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture/National Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Foundational Program, under the grant title, “Molecular Genetic Approaches for Increasing Preharvest Sprouting Tolerance in White Wheat.”

Preharvest sprouting is the unwanted germination of wheat kernels, which drastically affects the quality of flour.

With the grant, Carter will take different genes associated with preharvest sprouting and incorporate them into cultivars for field testing and release to growers and wheat breeders. The grant builds on the basic research of Steber, who has been working to characterize these genes in different wheat germplasm.

Learn more about new research grants here.