ARS | Publication request: Registration of ‘Shirley’ Wheat

Submitted to: Journal of Plant Registrations
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: October 1, 2009
Publication Date: January 2, 2010
Citation: Griffey, C.A., Thomason, W.E., Pitman, R.M., Beahm, B.R., Paling, J.J., Chen, J., Gundrum, P.G., Fanelli, J.K., Kenner, J.C., Dunaway, D.W., Brooks, W.S., Vaughn, M.E., Hokanson, E.G., Behl, H.D., Corbin, R.A., Hall, M.D., Liu, S., Custis, J.T., Waldenmaier, C.M., Starner, D.E., Gulick, S.A., Ashburn, S.R., Jones, E.H., Whitt, D.L., Bockelman, H.E., Souza, E.J., Brown Guedira, G.L., Kolmer, J.A., Long, D.L., Jin, Y., Chen, X., Cambron, S.E. 2010. Registration of ‘Shirley’ Wheat. Journal of Plant Registrations. 4:38-44.

Interpretive Summary: ‘Shirley’ soft red winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) provides producers with a widely adapted, short-stature, full-season cultivar that has high yield potential and good straw strength, winter hardiness, and milling and pastry baking qualities. As total wheat production and/or area per farm increase, availability of cultivars having distinctly different and complementary maturity dates will allow producers not only to spread their risks but also to produce and harvest grain of higher quality. Shirley expresses moderate or higher levels of resistance to most of the disease causing organisms prevalent in the eastern United States, with the exception of stripe rust and soilborne mosaic virus.

Technical Abstract: ‘Shirley’ (Reg. No. CV-1039, PI 656753) soft red winter (SRW) wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), developed and tested as VA03W-409 by the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station, was released in March 2008. Shirley was derived from the three-way cross VA94-52-25/‘Coker 9835’//VA96-54-234. Shirley is widely adapted and provides producers and end users with a full-season, short-stature, semidwarf (Rht1) cultivar that has very high yield potential and good milling and pastry baking qualities. Shirley also is notably resistant to leaf rust (Puccinia triticina Eriks.), stem rust (Puccinia graminis Pers.:Pers. f. sp. tritici Eriks. & E. Henn.), and powdery mildew [Blumeria graminis (DC.) E.O. Speer]. In Virginia Shirley had the highest 3-yr (2006–2008) average grain yield (6316 kg ha–1) among cultivars evaluated in the state variety trial. In USDA–ARS Uniform Eastern SRW Wheat Nursery Trials conducted at 29 locations in 2006 and at 22 locations in 2007, Shirley ranked first in grain yield in both years with mean yields of 6155 and 5456 kg ha–1, respectively. Shirley has soft grain texture, low endosperm separation indices (score = 8.9), high break fl our (323–328 g kg–1), and high straight grade (777–779 g kg–1) fl our yields on an Allis mill. Flour protein concentration (7.62–8.65 g 100 g–1) and gluten strength (84.6–93.6 g 100 g–1) of Shirley are lower than average. These quality attributes combined with low fl our sucrose solvent retention capacity (87.6– 90.8 g 100 g–1) contribute to Shirley’s good pastry baking quality (cookie spread diameters of 17.15–18.65 cm).