During a trip overseas five years ago, flour millers told Mark Darrington they were adamantly opposed to biotechnology in wheat.
"I said, 'What if that biotech wheat could give you a 5 percent increase in bread flour yield?'" Darrington, of the Idaho Wheat Commission, recalled. "Their eyes got wide and they said, 'Really? Can you do that?' It just depends on who is being advantaged by that technology."
Darrington is chairman of the Joint Biotechnology Committee, composed of members of U.S. Wheat Associates and the National Association of Wheat Growers.
The committee's goal is to transition customers and providers into wheat with biotechnology traits, Darrington said.
"That means sharing knowledge, but it also means meeting the needs of those customers who choose not to have biotech traits in their wheat," he said.
The Pacific Northwest system is already adaptable to segregating different classes, varieties and proteins of wheat, he said, and it will work to isolate genetically modified wheat.
The committee is working with wheat breeders and technology providers to develop traits growers want and the market wants, Darrington said.
"The last thing we want to do is offend the customer," he said. "We do not want to do something that the customers don't want."
Most people may think of pesticide resistance and herbicide resistance when thinking of biotechnology, Darrington said, but the committee is looking at environmentally friendly traits like drought resistance and protein use improvement.
"We're looking at all kinds of things that are consumer friendly as well as production friendly," he said. Oregon State University wheat breeder Jim Peterson said a lot of work is going on in with regard to wheat.
"There's different layers of technologies out there we're trying to apply," he said. "Genetic modification through transformation is just one of the technologies we're exploring and trying to bring to wheat."
Clearfield wheat was developed through the process of mutagenesis and selected for Roundup herbicide tolerance, Peterson said. Rather than involve the exchange of DNA between plants or species, it was modified through mutant events and is not restricted in the marketplace. Other varieties have been developed through mutagenesis or chromosomal engineering, Peterson said.
But the key change the industry is looking for is the acceptance of genetically modified traits, Peterson said.
Wheat doesn't have the production advantage of bioengineering that other crops do, Darrington said, and it has fallen behind in many places around the world as a result because it is less profitable. As the committee looks at the area of land available for future wheat production, he said, it believes it will need the boost of biotechnology to meet the public demand.
The committee has its next meeting in Utah in Oct. 20 and plans to release a white paper about future plans soon.
Copyright © 2009 Capital Press, MediaSpan, and The Associated Press where indicated. All rights reserved.
