Donalda hard red spring wheat

Abstract

Donalda, a hard red spring wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.), was developed at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. It is an awned, hollow-stemmed cultivar with high yield potential, short in stature with good lodging tolerance. During the 3 years of testing in the Western Bread Wheat Registration tests during 2018–2020, Donalda yielded 4.3% higher than Carberry and displayed similar physiological maturity. Additional features of Donalda that paralleled the performance of Carberry included plant height, tolerance to lodging, and quality parameters related to test weight, grain weight, and grain protein content. Overall, during the 3 years of testing, Donalda was rated “resistant” to the prevalent races of leaf, stem, and stripe rusts, “moderately susceptible” to common bunt and “intermediate” to Fusarium head blight. Three years of the end-use quality evaluation indicated that Donalda met the quality guidelines for the Canada Western Red Spring wheat market class.