Introduction

12W932-349 is a soft red winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivar developed at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus. It received Regional Registration for Ontario (No. 9239) by the Variety Registration Office, Plant Health and Production Division, Canadian Food Inspection Agency on 26 Mar. 2021. 12W932-349 is eligible for grades of Canada Eastern Soft Red Winter (CESRW).

Pedigree and Methods

12W932-349 was derived from the cross ‘Marker/DH5-78’ made at the University of Guelph in 2012 and developed through a doubled-haploid (DH) method (Devaux and Pickering 2005). Marker (Tamburic-Ilincic and Smid 2015) is a high yielding cultivar, well adapted to Ontario environmental conditions. The pedigree for DH5-78 is Emmit SRW × UGRC08 SRW.

12W932-349 was selected from among 105 DH lines developed from this cross and planted in Ridgetown in 2014 in 2 m long rows for seed increase. In 2015, the DH population was planted in Ridgetown and 12W932-349 was selected based on agronomic characteristics (winter survival, plant height, heading date) and leaf rust (Puccinia triticina Eriks.) resistance. 12W932-349 was planted in replicated, preliminary yield trials in Ridgetown (area 1) and Centralia (area 2), Ontario in 2016, where agronomic characteristics, disease resistance, and quality characteristics (test weight, protein concentration and kernel weight) were evaluated. In 2018 and 2019, 12W932-349 was evaluated, with designated checks Ava (a soft white wheat-sww) and Branson (a soft red wheat-srw), for yield and agronomic characteristics across different environments in the Ontario Orthogonal Trials (registration trials). 12W932-349 was evaluated for resistance to common leaf diseases [leaf rust (Puccinia triticina Eriks.), septoria tritici blotch (Mycosphaerella graminicola Fuckel J. Schrot) and powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici DC. Speer)] in Ontario under natural conditions (scale 0–9), where a rating of zero equates to no disease and a rating of nine implied that 90 percent of plant tissue showed visual symptoms of the disease. 12W932-349 was also evaluated for end-use quality characteristics, as part of the registration process, in the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada lab in Ottawa. Resistance to fusarium head blight (FHB) for 12W932-349 and designated checks was estimated after inoculation with Fusarium graminearum (Schwabe) in three (Ottawa, Elora, and Ridgetown) Ontario Cereal Crop Committee (OCCC) organized FHB inoculated nurseries. The spray inoculum used was a suspension of four F. graminearum isolates (two 15-ADON and two 3-ADON chemotypes) with a spore concentration of 5 × 10⁴ spores mL⁻¹. The suspension was produced as described by Tamburic-Ilincic et al. (2007). Due to differences in flowering date, each line was sprayed when the wheat spikes were at 50% anthesis (ZGS 65, Zadoks et al. 1974). After inoculation, the rows were irrigated with an overhead mist system delivering about 7.5 mm of water each day until 3 d after the last inoculation. Visual symptoms were recorded 21 d after inoculation as incidence (percentage of heads infected) and severity (percentage of infected spikeletes). FHB index (FHBI) was calculated as incidence × severity/100 (Tamburic-Ilincic et al. 2007). Deoxynivalenol (DON) was quantified by the ELISA method (Sinha and Savard 1996) with the commercially prepared EZ-Quant^® Vomitoxin ELISA kit from Diagnostix (Mississauga, ON, Canada). The lower DON detection limit for the kit was 0.5 ppm.

Performance

12W932-349 is well adapted for the winter wheat growing areas of Ontario. Although 12W932-349 was not statistically different from the checks for yield, it was numerically higher yielding than Ava in 2017 and 2019, and Branson in 2017 and 2018 (Table 1). 12W932-349 is shorter than Ava and earlier to head than both checks (P < 0.05) (Table 2). 12W932-349 expressed higher resistance to leaf rust than the checks but was similar for powdery mildew and septoria leaf spots (Table 2). The FHB index and DON levels for 12W932-349 were lower than the moderately susceptible checks (Emmit, CM614) at all nursery sites over the two years of testing (Table 3). 12W932-349 had a higher falling number than Ava and was very similar to Branson (Table 4). The flour yield of 12W932-349 was higher than the checks (Table 5).

Table 1.

Mean yield (t·ha⁻¹) for 12W932-349 and checks Branson and Ava in Ontario Winter Wheat Orthogonal (Registration) Trials (2017, 2018 and 2019).

Table 2.

Mean winter survival, plant height, heading date, and field disease data for 12W932-349 and checks Branson and Ava across locations in Ontario Winter Wheat Orthogonal (Registration) Trials (2017–2019).

Table 3.

Fusarium head blight index (FHBI) and deoxynivalenol (DON) level for 12W932-349 and checks included in Ontario Registration trials (2018 and 2019).

Table 4.

Kernel characteristics for 12W932-349 and checks Branson and Ava for grain collected in Ontario in 2018 and 2019.

Table 5.

End-use quality characteristics for 12W932-349 and checks Branson and Ava for grain collected in Ontario in 2018 and 2019.

Other Characteristics

Maintenance and Distribution of Seed

Breeder seed of 12W932-349 was produced when 200 heads were hand harvested at maturity and individually threshed, planted as head rows, rogued and harvested. Ten head rows were discarded. The seed will be maintained by the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus, Ridgetown, Ontario, N0P 2C0. Canadian Representative/Distributor is University of Guelph.