University researchers curate wheat database

Growers and researchers who need variety testing data on Pacific Northwest wheat crops don’t have to worry about sorting through decades of datasets themselves.

A team of researchers from the University of Idaho, Washington State University and Oregon State University have done it for them.

The team created Western Agricultural Variety Explorer, a curated database with information on thousands of wheat variety trials dating back 22 years.

“That was the goal, to standardize all of it,” said WAVE project director Julia Piaskowski.

Piaskowski, who is director of statistical programs with UI’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said growers need to look at variety testing results to determine which crops grow best in their area. This data is now available on the free WAVE phone app.

“The goal is to help them make planting decisions,” she said.

WAVE is financially supported by the Idaho Wheat Commission, National Institute for Food and Agriculture and the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station.

Piaskowski said this project was intended to overcome the difficulty of not only finding data, but sorting through its discrepancies. If a grower or researcher does not have good data, they cannot get good results, she said.

“I wanted to do a fancy combined analysis where I need to have data across locations, across years,” she said.

According to the UI, the team has compiled 2,166 wheat variety trial records from 69 locations, dating back 22 years.

The team is working to expand WAVE to include variety trial data on barley, legumes and canola.

There is also a website, westernagdata.org, which Piaskowski said is geared more toward researchers.

Other collaborators on the project include Juliet Marshall, Kurtis Schroeder and Jim Davis of UI; Olga Walsh, formerly of UI; Ryan Graebner of OSU; Clark Neely and Stephen Jones of WSU; and Steve Van Vleet, formerly of WSU.

Northwest Farm and Ranch

Read our latest Farm and Ranch quarterly publication, which came out this weekend, at lmtribune.com/special-section.