The 2026 growing season will be remembered as a challenging one for Louisiana’s wheat farmers. The St. Patrick’s Day weekend brought a late-spring freeze that severely damaged a significant portion of Louisiana’s wheat crop and many of the LSU AgCenter’s breeding trial plots in Winnsboro. The cold weather wasn’t good news for growers, but for AgCenter scientists working to breed better, more resilient wheat varieties, the freeze provided valuable data.

“The past few years have been favorable to lines with an early maturity habit,” said AgCenter small grains breeder Noah DeWitt. “This freeze event helped us eliminate lines with a too-early habit that will be punished in years with late freeze events.”

Breeders evaluate thousands of plots of experimental lines every year, trying to narrow them down to the plants most likely to perform best on Louisiana farms. Only a handful of lines are good enough to be released as varieties.

This year, the AgCenter planted thousands of wheat and oat plots and 1,500 triticale plots at LSU AgCenter Macon Ridge Research Station in Winnsboro, the LSU AgCenter Ben Hur Farm in Baton Rouge, and the LSU AgCenter Dean Lee Research and Extension Center. Also, there were increase strips for 100 wheat breeding lines and 40 oat breeding lines.

DeWitt said the breeding program collects data on a number of wheat pathogens, including leaf rust, stripe rust and fusarium head blight (scab) to guide decisions on developing resistant wheat varieties.

Another focus is how well wheat lines stand up to insect pressure. Trials in both the normal wheat yield plots and a specialized Hessian fly nursery at the AgCenter Doyle Chambers Central Research Station in Baton Rouge saw strong Hessian fly pressure this year. The insect also was present at an on-farm variety trial in Somerset in Tensas Parish.

Harvest of trials in Alexandria, Winnsboro and Somerset went well, DeWitt said, but he was unable to collect yield data on trials in Baton Rouge due to rain events and insufficient chilling hours during winter.

The breeding program made strides in several areas in the past year, including:

Progress on “speed breeding.” Last year, the first set of new wheat crosses spent two generations in a refrigerated shipping container used as a growth chamber. This saves two years of time in the breeding process. “The first set of these populations, consisting of siblings from the same cross, were planted in Baton Rouge,” DeWitt said. “Selections were made on the basis of leaf rust and Hessian fly resistance and maturity.”

Promising performance from LA 19-31. Last year, the AgCenter released LA 19-31, a medium-maturity wheat for Louisiana and the Southeast that combines excellent yields with strong disease resistance. Its resistance held up in this year’s trials, and yield data is encouraging so far. The variety will be available from UniSouth Genetics as USG 3437 with initial seed sales this year and greater availability next year, DeWitt said.

Triticale variety development. DeWitt expects to release a medium-late triticale variety for use as a cover crop and forage. Representatives of regional seed companies visited the AgCenter’s plots of triticale, which is a hybrid of wheat and rye.

Noah DeWitt, LSU AgCenter small grains breeder, speaks during a field day at the Macon Ridge Research Station on April 16. Photos by Olivia McClure

Triticale test plots at the LSU AgCenter Doyle Chambers Central Research Station in Baton Rouge.