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Second, wheats will be crossbred to get regionally adapted lines, he said. The best annual lines of wheat for this region will be crossed with existing perennial wheat lines to adapt the perennial trait into regionally adapted wheat cultivars.

The resulting crosses that display the best agronomic traits and regrowth will be selected and backcrossed with regional wheats, Rush said.

This process will continue for about five years and by that time, we will hopefully have some well-adapted perennial wheats that we can begin to increase seed for early field testing, he said.

The third part of the research is to go back to the first 20 lines of wheat he planted and carry forward the best 11 for further study on agronomic aspects fertilizer, water, insects and diseases.

We have to know if it comes back in the second year and is riddled with disease, he said.

Rush said he will plant the 11 selected lines again in another location, along with letting the original plots regrow.

We didnt know if we would get any regrowth here, and we did, he said.

While the research is exciting and many producers have already contacted him wanting to put out test plots, Rush said it will just take time to get enough seed for on-farm studies.

He also cautioned that this is high-risk research; it is a brand new program for Texas and it may not work in the long run. This is still very preliminary, Rush said. Theres a lot we dont know about this. Thats what makes it exciting. The potential is huge and thats what I am looking at.

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