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The Wheat Quality Council has implemented some
important activities since the 2002 Annual Meeting in Kansas City. Some of those
activities include:
Blue Ribbon Panel
A seven-member panel of breeders and industry representatives was appointed to
address several issues that could add value to the Wheat Quality Council (WQC)
stakeholders.
At the recommendation of the panel a few more
hours will be added to the annual meeting format to implement discussion topics
they felt the membership was interested in. Some of those are more discussions
around the variety review-especially contributions from the breeders; industry
trends; real-world wheat vs what was seen in the WQC samples and the wheat flow
in the US (both domestic and export).
Executive Committee of
the WQC Board
The Executive Committee had several conference calls this year. Each member was
assigned an area to cover. Topics included: mission statement and goals; quality
as it pertains to end use/consumer demands; annual meeting (focus, format,
timing); Executive Vice President job description and the WQC dues structure.
- "New Mission Statement": The mission
of the WQC is to advocate the development of new wheat varieties that
improve the value of wheat to all parties in the United States supply chain.
- "Goal": The goal of the WQC is to
improve the value of all US Wheat classes for producers, millers, and
processors of wheat.
Several actions were developed to support the
mission statement and main goal.
Wheat Tours
(View
all Wheat Tour Results - opens new window)
The WQC conducted five full wheat tours and one mini tour this year with a total
of 160 participants. The tours covered wheat areas in the following states: OK,
KS, NE, CO, GA, SC, NC, VA, AR, MO, TN, MS, LA, IL, IN, OH, MI, MN, SD & ND.
The participants made actual field stops in 1,286 wheat fields, looking at crop
conditions and making estimated yield calculations. The tours are completed
prior to harvest in each region in order to give the industry a snapshot view of
what to expect from the current wheat crop. These tours are always very well
received by the industry. A great deal of time is spent organizing the tours.
Evaluation of New Wheat
Lines
Evaluating new wheat lines is the real reason for the Wheat Quality Council's
existence. Each year, breeders submit some of their most promising new wheat
lines for industry evaluation prior to being released for producers to grow.
These evaluations provide the industry a preview of what will be prominent in
their milling or processing facilities in 2-5 years from now. This year, the WQC
evaluated 63 samples submitted by breeders. Four wheat classes are represented
in this evaluation-Soft Red Winter, Hard Winter, Hard Spring and Durum.
The soft wheats are milled at the Soft Wheat
Quality Lab in Wooster, OH; the hard winter wheats are milled at Kansas State
University (with coordination and assistance from GMPRC) in Manhattan, KS; the
hard spring wheats are milled at the Spring Wheat Quality Lab in Fargo, ND and
the durums are milled at the Northern Crops Institute, Fargo, ND. These people
provide a great service to the industry.
The flours that result from the milling process
are sent to cooperators who make a final product for evaluation i.e. bread,
cookies, and pasta. There are approximately 35 cooperators around the country
doing these evaluations. This service is provided at no charge to the WQC.
All of the resulting data from the milling and
baking evaluations is compiled, and a book is printed for each class of wheat.
These results are available to all WQC members at the WQC Annual Meeting.
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