About the Program                                       Site Characterization

The Statewide Cereal variety testing program is a cooperative effort among Oregon State University faculty, Extension personnel and grower cooperators across the state of Oregon. The program was initiated in 1992. The program is centrally coordinated, in Corvallis, by John Bassinette and Russ Karow.

    The program evaluates winter grains, (wheat, barley, oats and triticale) at 9 locations (Corvallis, Madras, Moro, conventional and no-till, Lexington, Hermiston, Pendleton, LaGrande and Ontario) and spring grains at 12 locations (same as above plus Scio, Klamath Falls muck soil and mineral soil) throughout the state. Growers provide fields and support for five locations (Hermiston, LaGrande, Scio, Lexington and Klamath Falls (muck soil) and the OSU Agriculture Experiment Stations for the other six.

All entries in the trials are treated with fungicide and Gaucho prior to planting unless otherwise specified. Seeding rate is 30 seeds per sq. ft. at all locations except for Pendleton, Lexington and Moro where seeding rate are 20 seeds per sq. ft. unless otherwise specified. All plots are a minimum of 100 sq. ft. Seed weight, (kernels per weight) and germination percentage are determined for each entry and then used to determine the amount of seed for planting. Other cultural practices are based on best management practices for a given location.

 Yield, test weight, grain protein, plant height and thousand kernel weight data is collected on all plots. Heading date, lodging percentage and disease readings is collected at on-site locations and at off-site locations if personel are available.

The spring wheat portion of the trial is separated by market class, hard (red and white) and soft (including clubs and oats). This allows us to apply extra fertilizer to the hard wheat varieties, to increase protein, while not affecting the soft wheat varieties in the trial. Due to the limited number of hard wheat entries, the winter portion of the trial is not separated by market class.

The Oregon Wheat Commission, The Oregon Grains Commission, OSU Ag Experiment Station, and OSU Extension Service provide funding for this work. Salaries for many of the research scientists are provided by the 1999 Cereals Legislative initiative. Additional funding comes from a site fee ($150 variety per location) charged to commercial companies.

Information generated from these trials is summarized and then presented at Field days, in Extension publications, particularly – “Winter Grain Varieties for 200-” (Special Report 775), “Spring Grain Varieties for 200-” (Special Report 986) and on the world wide web at www.css.orst.edu/cereals/. It should be noted that individual site data is posted to the web as soon as the data is summarized. This is the timeliest source of information for growers and plant breeders.

Site Information  

Location               Trial Type                   Coordinator          Site or cooperator 

 Statewide cereal variety testing program locations and site climatic  information.

* Yearly growing degree days total using a 50^of  base temperature.