Cutting-Edge Technology: More Than a Bread Knife

Pollinating wheat in the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center greenhouse. You can see construction on the west side of the K-State football stadium from the windows of the greenhouse.

Though the ribbon cutting for the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center (KWIC) involved a bread knife, it's not the only "cutting-edge" activity going on there.

I understand bread knives. I don't understand doubled haploids. And that's OK. That's why we Kansas wheat farmers have people working at KWIC who do understand complicated "stuff" like doubled haploids.

Wheat has been a basis of the human diet for thousands of years. Bread in one form or another is a basic food source all over the world. It seems simple - flour, water, yeast and a few assorted other ingredients.

But wheat is actually a very complex plant. A typical wheat variety is hexaploid: It has six copies of each gene, where most living things have two. Its 21 chromosomes contain a massive 16 billion base pairs of DNA, 40 times as much as rice, six times as much as maize and five times as much as people.

Mapping the wheat genome is complicated business because wheat is a complicated plant. It's one reason that work in wheat genetics has lagged behind other cereal grains. But KWIC will offer opportunities for researchers to learn more and put that knowledge to use.

Different stages of growth in grow rooms at KWIC

KWIC houses Heartland Plant Innovations, which is a farmer-owned plant science company created by the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers. HPI leases laboratory and greenhouse space in the KWIC to conduct their research on doubled haploids, which are genetically pure plant lines. Using doubled haploids cuts 4 to 6 years out of the normal 12-year development time for new wheat varieties that promise higher yields, disease resistance, drought resistance and other crop improvements.

When you visit a wheat research center, you may not expect to see corn plants growing in the greenhouse. But researchers are using corn to pollinate wheat and then are extracting the embryos. I don't understand much more than that. Let's get real: I don't understand that either.

Wheat plants are in the foreground, with corn plants at different stages of maturity growing in the background of the same greenhouse.

Soon, KWIC will be the home for a gene bank which will store genetics from the Wheat Genetics Resource Center at K-State. Since 1984, the WGRC has led a global effort in conserving and researching more than two dozen wild wheat and goatgrass species, including more than 12,000 strains. More than 30,000 samples from the collection of wild wheat relatives, genetic stocks and improved genetic resources have been distributed to scientists in 45 countries and 39 U.S. states.

Randy looks into a growth chamber which was sponsored by KFRM 550 AM radio. KFRM is the station for whom I do freelance reporting, giving a Central Kansas report Monday through Friday.

The process is complicated. That's why I was somewhat amused by one of the researchers' low-tech solutions on one table in the greenhouse. Yes, Styrofoam cups cover some of the smaller wheat plants. I didn't ask why.

Whether high tech (like doubled haploids) or low tech like Styrofoam cups, the work is important - not only for producers but also for the people of the world. By 2050, the world population will reach 9 billion. Improving today's wheat varieties will help meet the needs of a hungry and growing world.


While I don't understand doubled haploids, I do understand feeding hungry people. The KWIC also has a test kitchen, where Kansas Wheat and friends just finished testing recipes and selecting finalists for the National Festival of Breads, coming to Manhattan, June 20-22. You can come to Manhattan and watch them bake on June 22. Check out this recipe from the 2011 winner. The NFOB website has recipes from other winners and finalists.

The flour sponsor for the National Festival of Breads is King Arthur. But I had to take a photo of the "hometown" Hudson Cream Flour in the KWIC test kitchen, made by our Stafford County neighbors in Hudson.

Bread of Life: Kansas Wheat Innovation Center

An 8-foot-long "ribbon" of braided bread was the centerpiece for the dedication for the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center in Manhattan last Friday.

Basic bread is a pretty straightforward recipe: You combine flour, water, yeast and a few other ingredients.  When flour is mixed with water, the gluten swells to form a continuous network of fine strands. This network forms the structure of bread dough and makes it elastic and pliable.

Last Friday, the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center celebrated a new network and structure as it officially opened a new $10.3 million building. Just like gluten coming together in a series of fine strands, Kansas wheat farmers came together to invest in their future. The Kansas Wheat Innovation Center building has at its center the collaboration of Kansas wheat farmers - those strands of cooperation coming from each corner of the state. Through a voluntary penny-and-a-half Kansas wheat checkoff,  the Center was built to begin a new era for wheat variety research. It represents the single largest investment by wheat farmers in the nation. The Center was built on land owned by Kansas State University, but the Kansas Wheat Commission has a 50-year lease on the property.

The loaf of bread used on Friday was braided together. It was baked in one continuous piece in a large oven at the American Institute of Baking, also in Manhattan. Just like that braid strengthened the structure of the completed loaf, other collaborators have joined Kansas farmers in this endeavor to improve wheat and find new ways to feed a hungry world. On Friday, naming rights donors were recognized. The donors were many and varied: They included banks, insurance companies, a railroad, seed companies, agriculture cooperatives, media outlets, ag families and others.

In his remarks, Kansas Wheat Commissioner Ron Suppes, Dighton, held up a grain of wheat. If you were more than two rows back, you couldn't see the kernel. But, in some ways, that's the point. This little, bitty seed is pretty powerful. From a tiny little kernel, a wheat plant grows. With the right combination of soil, water, sunlight, temperature and time, the one kernel produces a plant with a lot of kernels.

When those kernels are harvested, they can help feed the world. That's a lot of power for one little seed.

And the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center represents a lot of power for the Kansas wheat industry, too.

“We are excited to share the story of how the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center will lead the way in new wheat research that gives Kansas wheat farmers the tools to produce high-yielding, high-quality wheat varieties that will continue to feed the world. The world population is expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050. The KWIC will play a big role in helping U.S. wheat farmers meet the population’s growing demand for food.”

Rich Randall

chairman of the Kansas Wheat Commission and farmer near Scott City

Tomorrow, more photos and more on the work that will be done at the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center.