Goals in Triticale Breeding

The enormous and rapid expansion of triticale cultivation is having consequences: breeders may intensify their breeding efforts and select more strictly. A larger number of varieties with optimized adaptation and more differentiated profiles will result. Future varieties will become more diversified in their characters such as the falling number or sprouting resistance.

But the increase of triticale cultivation is also having a negative impact. In the past, triticale was known as a very healthy crop when it comes to leaf diseases. Under normal weather conditions, no fungicide treatment was necessary. But more recently, leaf diseases including powdery mildew have become a problem in triticale cultivation. In the future triticale may have similar disease complexes and severities as wheat. The situation in triticale, however, may become more serious than in wheat because fewer disease resistance mechanisms are known today. This is why resistance breeding will be the most important issue in the coming years. Breeders are intensifying their efforts and carefully ranking all new triticale varieties by their level of resistance to leaf and ear diseases.

Farmers need to be alert and monitor their crops on a regular basis to apply fungicides early if necessary.  Especially in regions with a large area of triticale cultivation this will be important.  Saaten-Union varieties have been selected to require minimal fungicide inputs in order to maximize the profitability of triticale cultivation.