Canada: New variety aims to grab Prairie wheat crown

Can a single wheat variety become synonymous with prairie spring wheat production? If so, it would be AAC Brandon.

One of the most widely grown Canadian Western Red Spring wheats in Western Canada for the past nine years, Brandon first hit the seed market in 2014 and quickly became a farmer favourite, said SeCan western business manager Todd Hyra. SeCan is the distributor of the variety.

“Brandon has been a mainstay for us,” he said, adding it’s performed near the top of trials through both wet and drought years.

AAC Westking purports to build on AAC Brandon’s advantages with more yield and more attractive straw height.

Times change. For the past several years, breeders with Agriculture Canada have been working on a spring wheat with all the agronomic advantages of Brandon but with traits that address today’s challenges.

It’s called AAC Westking, and it’s being multiplied by seed growers across Western Canada and in New Zealand in advance of its 2026 crop season launch.

Westking carries most of Brandon’s traits but in most cases they’ve been improved, said Hyra. This includes six per cent higher yield and a straw height that will be attractive to growers.

“We’ve seen varieties that had higher yield before but not this combination of short, strong straw and lodging (resistance) as good or better than Brandon.

“You don’t want to be giving anything up when you’re taking on a new product. Westking looks like it’s going to be the one that has what it takes to replace those acres.”

Beyond specific agronomic factors, the key to Brandon’s longevity is its consistency, said Hyra. That has to be the case for any potential replacement.

“What we look for in its successor is the ability to generate good yields across a wide range of growing conditions and not having to require the stars to align to get the product to perform,” Hyra said.

“And so when I talked about AAC Brandon performing under dry conditions, performing under higher moisture conditions — in all cases always being consistent, always providing a good yield — that’s what’s made it the go-to product for so many years. And that’s what we’re hoping to see out of Westking.”

The variety features a moderately resistant (MR) rating for fusarium head blight, the same grade assigned to Brandon by the Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye and Triticale.

That rating is more impressive than it may seem. A resistant (R) rating is rare because pathologists tend to err on the conservative side, said Hyra.

“Seeing a full R is rare in many things and there are no CWRS wheat varieties that have an R rating. MR is as good as they get. And then its leaf rust, stem rust are all either MR or higher so it’s got the full leaf rust protection package.”

Westking also shares some of the same talent that bred Brandon. Richard Cuthbert of the Agriculture Canada research centre in Swift Current, the lead breeder of the Westking development team, was part of the Brandon team led by Ron DePauw.

The three broad qualities Cuthbert and his team aimed for were agronomics, disease resistance and end-use quality. More specifically, they were looking for stronger straw, the right height for harvestability, and standability. This growing season had high lodging potential in parts of Western Canada but Westking appears to be standing proud, said Cuthbert.

“It’s standing very well from Alberta to the Red River Valley this year,” he said.

The researchers were somewhat surprised and pleased that Westking features very large kernels.

“That is an indicator of excellent drought performance,” Cuthbert said. “This year, we’re starting to take off samples in a very severe terminal drought here at Swift Current, and we’re still seeing large kernels, which indicate good filling under extreme heat and drought stress.”

The large kernel also lends itself to end-use quality and higher milling yield, providing more flour per unit of wheat.

Development of Westking started in 2013, around the time Brandon was released commercially. Its original parentage includes Canada Prairie Spring Red wheat AAC Goodwin by Brandon top-crossed with a sister of AAC Alida, a CWRS.

“All three of those lines brought some unique traits,” said Cuthbert. “We know Brandon now, but in 2013 it was just launching, so it was still relatively new but we knew it was a very strong variety. It was shorter, stronger straw. It had stable yield performance across a range of environments as it launched. We knew its FHB (resistance) was very good. We knew its rust (resistance) was very good.”

Goodwin is a cross of AC Carberry (CWRS) by AC Cadillac, a hard red spring wheat.

“We knew that it had very high grain yield across years and environments and we weren’t sure why,” Cuthbert said. “We’re starting to get more information on that now through some physiology studies. And we knew that the third parent, the sister of AAC Alida, was a very strong line at the time with very good FHB resistance, much stronger straw, better plant type.

“So we were trying to bring all those things together from those elite lines.”

Westking will only be marketed in Canada for the first several years of its commercial life. Part of the variety’s development occurred in New Zealand in 2023 and 2024, as SeCan sought to speed the replication process.

Although primarily done for logistical reasons, the cultivar’s performance in New Zealand, a different environment, further displayed Westking’s range, said Cuthbert.

“The day length is about the same. That works well. The growing season is similar but better. They tend to have higher solar radiation. They tend to have more rainfall than we would have in Saskatchewan, but they have the ability to irrigate as well.”

The New Zealand increase went “phenomenally well,” said Cuthbert.

“It managed to achieve about 107 bushels per acre clean in New Zealand, so the yield potential is really there with Westking.”

Cuthbert credits the Canadian Wheat Research Coalition, a collaboration between the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission, Alberta Grains and Manitoba Crop Alliance, for funding the breeding project.

Tags: variety, spring wheat, prairi, Canada, Production, wheat