For farmers in the South, wheat is a small grain often afforded a small acreage, but the network at the root of making the crop viable is one of the largest collaborative plant breeding programs in the U.S.  

Six Southeastern universities chartered SunGrains in 2005 to share resources – germplasm, royalties, trial plots and research – in an effort to expand well-developed wheat, oat and triticale genetics. For farmers who have grown wheat in the South in the last 20 years – chances are it was a SunGrains originated variety. 

“We have a fairly extensive charter that includes complete unlimited sharing of germplasm. We frequently steal each other's lines and release them as varieties,” said Steve Harrison, Louisiana State University wheat breeder and SunGrains founding member. “If they don't do as well where they came from as they do in your home state, you're free to take someone else's line, increase it, and release it, and that brings a lot of power to the program.”  

The University of Arkansas, Clemson University, the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, Louisiana State University, North Carolina State University and Texas A&M University combine to create SunGrains. Together the universities share three regional wheat nurseries, two oat nurseries and one for triticale. 

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“As a public breeding program, we have a lot of freedom to operate and do research, compared to private companies where they have one goal, which is generate product for money,” said Mohamed Mergoum, University of Georgia wheat breeder. “I have the freedom, and everybody in this group has the freedom, to develop germplasm - which can take more than 20 years sometimes – and a private company will never do that.” 

Specialized varieties, regional results 

One big benefit of public wheat breeding by Southern universities is developing, testing and releasing varieties in the diverse growing regions that make the South a challenging but rewarding farming zone. 

“Another important consideration is that the big seed companies in wheat breeding really are not in the southern U.S. They test in the southern U.S., but they're not developing varieties in the southern U.S.,” Harrison said. “There's over 100 varieties that we've developed and released in the last 15 years, probably closer to 250 and those have all been licensed and marketed under names that you would not associate with SunGrains to growers. We serve the growers, the farmers, a lot more than they probably realize.”  

Stephen Harrison shows variety trials at a field plot tour near Winnsboro, La. (Photo by Raney Rapp.)

Prior to SunGrains, varieties would be created by the individual university-specific breeding programs, be tested for two or three years and then released. The resulting varieties would be well-developed and locally adapted but would often struggle to gain enough acreage to support a broader release.  

“Since the advent of SunGrains, we're now testing all our potential varieties, our breeding lines, in seven to nine states every year, and so we develop a lot more regionally adapted varieties that then serve the clientele across a number of states. And that's very important,” Harrison said. 

When it comes to top trending traits, regional specifics are king. Testing all upcoming varieties in trial plots across the SunGrains group allows the breeders to identify varieties that perform well for their specific needs.  

“It's regional from the standpoint that in Texas, we've got to have Hessian Fly resistance. We've got to have rust resistance. And then when you talk to most of our producers locally, they prefer a high test weight,” said Russel Sutton, Texas A&M University SunGrains member said. “When you go up to North Carolina, they're looking for something totally different, in most instances, than what we need. You're looking for a variety that can go from east coast to west coast, as well.” 

Genomic progress  

Timeliness is key for crop variety breeders looking to stay on top of the growing game. Developing germplasm can take as many as 20 years to perfect, and traditional variety development averages 12 years to move from a first generation cross to a perfected, field-ready variety.  

Conversely, farmers typically change varieties about every five years, leaving variety developers little time to stay ahead of changing trends in disease or pest resistance, test weight and yield. In this realm, SunGrains’ cooperative benefits shine. 

One of the varieties recently released in Georgia began as a cross in 2015 and was released to the public in 2022. While the seven-year timeframe isn’t much shorter than a typical breeding line, Mergoum, the line’s breeder, said the difference SunGrains makes is in the amount of information available to guide the cross. 

“Testing regionally does not reduce the time, but it does increase your knowledge on adaptation, how large the yield is, is it specific for Georgia, or can be grown up to Texas? So that's very important,” Mergoum said. “Companies most likely will not license a variety with a specific adaptation only good in South Georgia, for instance, they would like to have a large adaptation, especially in a state where wheat is large.” 

One breeding technique SunGrains breeders have adapted to help cut time when developing varieties is utilizing double haploids. Double haploids streamline the breeding process by stabilizing the traits within the line.  

DH varieties quickly answer critical questions about whether a trait truly offers consistent disease resistance or yield benefits, Noah DeWitt, LSU wheat specialist said.  

SunGrains wheat is shown in a Louisiana field plot trial. (Photo by Raney Rapp.)

“Instead of having to wait five or six years to get a line stabilized enough that you can put it through the testing pipeline, a DH gets you a totally homogeneous and homozygous line, and you're able to initiate that testing process almost immediately,” DeWitt said. “Another thing this cooperative testing allows us to speed up, has to do with genomic selection. We're able to get genome-wide markers on both potential testing candidates, but also all lines that have been represented in our historical trials, and then we're able to build predictive models.” 

Essentially, the depth of the historic data SunGrains provides allows breeders to quickly identify promising candidates for more resource-intensive testing at an earlier generation. For Mergoum, those traits can easily be broken down into two categories – traits that influence yield and those that don’t. 

“Our job as a breeder is to combine them in one variety. That's the bottom line,” Mergoum said. “Each environment has a set of genes that give you high yield. The genes are for high yield in Georgia are not the same in Louisiana or in Texas.  Even within Georgia, North and South, we need different genes. Our responsibility is to protect that pool of genes.” 

Country-wide collaboration  

For Southern small grain breeders, the weight of the responsibility of breeding good varieties is often heavy. Because of small planting acreages, funding is low, allowing many universities a single position.  

SunGrains changes the narrative of plant breeding and allows breeders in the group to create meaningful personal and professional connections. 

“We have a whole bunch of PhD plant breeders that are all very capable, all running independent programs, but running those programs collaboratively,” Harrison said.  “The exchange of ideas, the sharing of germ plasm and the regional testing are all very powerful aspects that you really don't get with a seed company.” 

SunGrains also increases investment in the future generation of plant breeders, a highly specialized field of study. 

“A big part of our work is teaching or training future plan breeders. That's a big part of our work,” said Ali Babar, University of Florida SunGrains member. “We also collaborate with each other on our PhD or other graduate student research to work and get help from each other on that area.” 

The most beneficial aspect of SunGrains is the strength in numbers its members achieve. Not only do they have better negotiating power with brands as a group, they also develop lifelong relationships with colleagues invested in similar success.  

“At the end of the day, we’re all still friends,” Harrison said.   

Current members of the SunGrains initiative include: Stephen Harrison and Noah DeWitt, Louisiana State University, Russell Sutton and Ellen Melson, Texas A&M University, Richard Boyles, Clemson University, Ali Babar, University of Florida, Ehsan Shakiba, University of Arkansas, Mohamed Mergoum, University of Georgia, and Nonoy Bandillo, North Carolina State University.