2013 Soft Wheat Quality Laboratory 59th Annual Research Review

The 2013 Soft Wheat Quality Laboratory 59th Annual Research Review was held in Wooster, Ohio, March 19-20.  The meeting was attended by 85 members of the soft wheat community representing public research and educational institutions, public and private breeding programs, milling and baking industries and current and retired USDA-ARS employees.  Dr. Peg Redinbaugh as the research leader of the newly formed Corn, Soybean & Wheat Quality Unit, welcomed the participants and gave a brief background of the unit merger.  Dr. Steve Slack, Vice President for Ag. Admin and Dr. Robert Matteri, USDA-ARS Midwest Area Director, also gave the welcoming and opening remarks for the meeting.  Dr. Byung-Kee Baik was introduced as the new director of the Soft Wheat Quality Laboratory.  For John Donelson, former SWQL researcher, it was his 58th year in attendance.  The laboratory would like to thank all the speakers and the student poster presenters for their participation in the meeting. 

Participants were invited to express their interests in redefining the most relevant quality targets produced by the laboratory in an open discussion led by Dr. Baik.  An excellent panel of speakers addressed topics from association mapping for milling quality, whole grain wheat quality, SRW wheat quality for overseas markets, marker assisted breeding, gluten polymer structure, disease resistance, climate change and genetics. All four scientists from the CSWQRU, Drs. Redinbaugh, Mian, Stewart and Baik, also presented their research activities on corn and wheat virus, and soybean quality.  Dinner and AACCI sponsored "happy hour" at the Wooster Inn were attended by over half the meeting participants, many of whom stayed on to attend the Small Grains Meeting hosted by The Ohio State University.

Winners of the second annual Bill Yamazaki student poster contest were announced at the end of the meeting.  First prize was awarded to Shalini Mukherjee from the University of Manitoba for her poster "Analysis of Sucrose to Starch Metabolism Pathway in Developing Grains of Common Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)".  Second prize went to Tiffany Sikes from Virginia Tech, for her poster entitled "Validation of Loci Conferring Adult Plant Resistance to Powdery Mildew in Wheat Cultivar Massey and Identification of Diagnostic Molecular Markers".  Congratulations to these students for their fine work.

The 2013 Soft Wheat Quality Laboratory Annual Report was distributed at the meeting and has been posted on the SWQL website.