Like the colors of the American flag, Oklahoma researchers hope to see red and white waving across the bread basket of the United States. Red and white varieties of wheat, that is.

For years, Oklahoma has produced only hard red varieties of winter wheat, and a major reason for that is its tolerance to environmental conditions that prevent it from sprouting in the fields.

Brett Carver, Oklahoma State University professor of plant and soil sciences, said a breeding program focused on genetic improvements in varieties of hard white winter wheat for Oklahoma started about five years ago. 

"A breeding effort is now being focused on white winter wheat. We are trying to produce it because of pressure from markets," Carver said. "Oklahoma needs to think about how agriculture can be diversified within the state."

Domestic buyers want lighter colored whole wheat products that are sweeter in taste than the red wheats for consumers who demand these qualities, particularly for making certain pasta products such as noodles. 

Patricia Rayas, OSU Food and Agricultural Products Research and Technology Center cereal chemist, said polyphenolic compounds within wheat provide its color and taste.

"People can detect taste differences between the two wheats, and the white wheats are sweeter," she said.

Carver agreed, saying the dark wheat tastes somewhat bitter because of the same polyphenolic compounds.

"An advantage of white wheat is the compound is inherently removed so fewer sweeteners are added to wheat products," he added.

Another advantage of producing white winter wheat is the potential for the United States to market it to other countries. 

"It can be used in producing different types of oriental noodles for countries such as China and Japan," Carver said.

"Other countries won't use red wheat because they really prefer the white. The use of white wheat results in a more appealing end product."

Rayas said the use of red wheat in noodle products changes the elasticity, texture and color of the noodles. The result often is a batch of grayish colored noodles that could spoil the hungriest of appetites.

A major weakness of white wheat, however, is its susceptibility to sprouting while in the fields. Once sprouting occurs, the germ and gluten in the wheat are destroyed, resulting in a non milling quality wheat and losses to growers.

Jiming Wu, OSU graduate student from Nanjing, China, said the problem with white wheat sprouting early exists in his home country. He said the wheat can actually poison foods if the germination rate is high enough.

After studying at Nanjing Agriculture University, Wu worked with Carver to develop a procedure to evaluate white wheat genotypes for the sprouting characteristic.

"We compared germination procedures and chose the one which best predicted sprouting tolerance in the field," Wu said.

Carver said their main objective is to give farmers the option to produce the white variety in the event demand makes it possible to do so on a regular basis.

Kim Anderson, OSU Cooperative Extension agricultural economist, said no one knows what the demand for white wheat will be.

"I don't perceive a strong market until researchers introduce varieties that are not susceptible to sprouting," Anderson said. "If they can develop a variety that won't sprout, and we can produce a consistent supply of quality hard white wheat, then there may be a switch from the red variety." 

The wheat researchers and developers said they have seen progress in the development of sprout tolerant white wheat over the past few years. However, their hope is to see mass marketing of the fruits of their labor begin within the next two or three years. When that happens then perhaps the waving of both red and white wheat will plant a little green in the pockets of the American farmer.

By Mandi Branstetter

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