UC web tool provides information for grain growers

Small-grain growers could have an easier time deciding which varieties to plant, thanks to new University of California software.

The Interactive Variety Selection Web Tool gives growers a list of choices that meet their priorities about the relative importance of yield, protein content and disease susceptibility.

Growers gave the new program good reviews as it was demonstrated at small grains research meetings early this year.

"The feedback has been very positive," said Mark Lundy, UC Cooperative Extension small grains specialist. "People have said that the tool is useful. At a recent meeting where we had a clicker survey, about 90 percent of respondents expressed interest in using the tool for making small-grain variety decisions."

For decades, UC has published detailed trial results for both public and private small grains that let a grower see how a particular variety performed in terms of yield, quality and other important factors.

The web tool lets growers use this information by entering their most important criteria for a small grain and seeing a list of the varieties that have met those priorities over the last three years.

The software is in a beta or testing version, best used on a computer rather than a smartphone, that is already available on the UC Agronomy Research and Education Small Grains website (smallgrainselection.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/).

A grower first chooses a variety from among a list that includes common wheat, durum wheat, triticale and barley. The grower next selects between spring or fall planting.

The next step is to designate the region from a list that includes the Sacramento Valley, the Northern and Central San Joaquin Valley, the Southern San Joaquin Valley, the Imperial Valley and the Intermountain region.

Next comes more detailed information, such as the importance of knowing with confidence that the yield or protein should be above average.

As a final step, the user decides whether to exclude varieties that are susceptible to stripe rust, or those that are not yet available commercially.

With all the boxes checked, the web tool then generates a list that includes the varieties meeting all the criteria in recent trials.

"The current version of the web tool summarizes the most recent three seasons of UC trial data for crop productivity results and the most recent five years of UC trial observations in terms of disease and agronomic traits," Lundy said.

Data from UC small-grains trials going back to the 1980s is already available online. An updated version of the web tool, which should be available later this year, will allow users to use more of that historical information.

"We are releasing a sister website later this year that will enable users to explore the data across a longer time period, and users will also have more control over the locations and periods of time they interact with," Lundy said.

This sister website could let users do some quick agronomic research by seeing the interactions between variety and a number of important environmental conditions or management practices.

Growers will be able to see, for example, how location or weather change the yield and protein of a particular variety.

Eventually, growers might also be able to check data from past trials to learn how management choices, like the amount of fertilizer applied or whether the crop was irrigated or rainfed, are likely to affect a variety's performance.

"The data exploration web tool, to be available later this year, will help interested users dig into the details of particular sites and years more specifically," Lundy said.

While yield and protein sum up two of the most important quality criteria for the large share of the small-grain harvest that goes for feed, there are plans to expand the program to make it even more useful for growers serving the important bread and pasta markets.

"The California Wheat Commission is interested in doing more to emphasize and communicate crop quality attributes," Lundy said. "As part of that, we've discussed adding a filter that helps identify varieties that have performed well across a wider array of quality parameters than protein content alone."

California growers annually plant around 500,000 acres of common and durum wheat, large tracts of triticale, a drought-tolerant cross between wheat and rye, and nearly 100,000 acres of barley.

Although the state's growers also plant more than 100,000 acres of oats, Lundy said there is not enough financial research support to consistently include the crop in statewide trials or in the web tool.

"We are not currently working with oats in our variety testing program," he said. "Resource limitations require that we focus on crops with a large geographic footprint and consistent sources of funding for multi-year trial efforts."

(Bob Johnson is a reporter in Davis. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@aol.com.)