Breeders can save time evaluating wheat lines with commercial potential by tapping into a database developed by ARS and South Dakota State University researchers. The database holds milling and baking quality data from hundreds of hard winter wheat lines grown at federal breeding nurseries that USDA has managed throughout the Great Plains since 1991. Breeders can home in on a wheat line's major quality deficiencies and rank each one based upon milling and baking quality. The user-friendly Windows database allows breeders to select icons with pull-down menus. The Regional Performance Nursery Relational Database is provided free of charge by the USDA. The database may be found on the Internet at http://gqu1.usgmrl.ksu.edu/gqu/HWWQL/crop%20reports.html.
Hard Winter Wheat Quality Laboratory, Manhattan, KS
Okkyung K. Chung, (785) 776-2703, okchung@usgmrl.ksu.edu

Thirsty cotton plants can easily be detected by aircraft-mounted sensors shortly after thirst sets in, an ARS study in a central California cotton field confirms. Scientists put the sophisticated sensors through this test because they anticipate farmers in the future may increasingly rely on imagery from these or other instruments, mounted on aircraft and satellites, to monitor crops. The instrument package included three multispectral digital cameras that detect light in different wavelengths and a thermal infrared sensor that detects heat. Imagery from all sensors is processed through a computer. The study—a collaboration by ARS scientists in California and Arizona—is one of the first to show that scrutinizing imagery from both kinds of instruments may be the best way to sidestep inaccuracies possible when thermal imagery alone is used to find thirsty plants. Scientists turned off irrigation valves for their research field to simulate real-life situations in which irrigation pipes can become blocked or automated schedulers malfunction.
Western Integrated Cropping Systems Research, Shafter, CA
Stephan J. Maas, (805) 746-8002, smaas@lightspeed.net

Last Updated: November 13, 1998
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