New South Dakota Winter Wheat Variety Offers High Yield Potential

By: Kansas Farmer, Farm Progress

Oahe is a new South Dakota winter wheat with high yield potential and an “excellent” disease package, according to Sunish Sehgal, South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station winter wheat breeder.

From 2013 to 2015, Oahe ranked No. 1 in mean grain yield among hard red winter wheat trials in the North Regional Performance Nurseries, which has test plots throughout the Great Plains states and Canadian provinces.

Oahe yields were 1 to 2 bushels more per acre than the average performance of other SDSU varieties, Sehgal says.

It has good resistance to stripe rust, leaf rust and wheat streak mosaic virus, along with resistance to fusarium head blight that is comparable to other popular varieties.

Oahe has excellent winter-hardiness. It has a longer coleoptile — the sheath that protects the seed — than other varieties, which results in less winterkill, along with better drought tolerance.