SASKATOON — A company in the United States is commercializing a new falling number test it believes is more accurate than the existing method.
Amber Hauvermale, research assistant professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Washington State University, developed the test in collaboration with several other organizations.
It was in response to the outcry from growers in the Pacific Northwest region following a devastating 2016 disaster where much of the soft white wheat crop was severely discounted due to poor falling numbers.
Part of that was due to harvest rainfall causing sprouting, which is a legitimate concern for the baking industry.
However, there was also a cold snap earlier in the year during the soft dough stage of development that induced alpha-amylase expression.
“It’s not a sprouting event, but it can cause a decrease in falling number due to alpha-amylase expression,” said Hauvermale.
Growers were being unfairly penalized for something that did not harm the baking performance of the flour made from that wheat.
That prompted calls for a new testing methodology to replace the Hagberg-Perten Falling Numbers Test developed 70 years ago.
The existing test is based on how long it takes a plunger to fall through a test tube of wheat gravy, which is an indirect way of testing for pre-harvest sprouting damage.
The new test uses dipsticks, similar to a COVID-19 test, to directly measure alpha-amylase activity. The dipsticks are then read with a flatbed scanner that provides a falling number estimate.
The new methodology has been tested against the old methodology at the plot level, in the U.S. elevator system and by the Wheat Marketing Center.
“We did see equivalent performance essentially at those three different levels of testing, so we were pretty pleased with that,” said Hauvermale.
Jayne Bock, technical director with the Wheat Marketing Center, said the problem with the existing test is its margin of error.
There are substantial price discounts in the U.S. Pacific Northwest for wheat samples that have a falling number below 300 seconds.
The existing test has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 20 or 30 seconds, so a sample that has a true value of 300 seconds may have a result that reads as low as 270 seconds or as high as 330 seconds.
That is troublesome considering price discounts often start at around 298 seconds.
“To have a cutoff that’s so quick after 300 seconds, when the accuracy of the test doesn’t really allow for that, is quite punitive for growers,” she said.
Hauvermale said the new test could save farmers “hundreds of millions of dollars” in years such as 2016, when there is widespread weather damage across large swaths of the growing area.
There is potential for the test to be further refined so it can be used directly on farms where growers might be able to improve their falling number levels by storing the grain for a while.
“There are potentially huge impacts to growers if they can preserve economic value at the farm level,” she said.
Bock found that the new test delivers nearly identical falling number values as the old test and in some cases is proving to be more accurate than the existing model.
An example of that are the samples of wheat that experienced a severe freeze event in the Pacific Northwest in 2024.
The existing test showed that wheat had falling number values in the 260 to 270 second range. The test was sensitive to whatever happened to the starch during the freeze.
However, the new test resulted in values exceeding 300 seconds.
The wheat samples were subsequently used in baking tests, which showed the wheat flour performed perfectly, indicating that the new test had it right.
“In the grain distribution handling system, this wheat would have been discounted for sure, when in reality it’s actually still good and still very useable,” said Bock.
EnviroLogix is the company commercializing the new test, which will initially be used for testing soft wheats because that is what it was calibrated to do.
The company is working with other partners to calibrate the test for other classes of wheat.
Hauvermale said the hope is to eventually commercialize the new test in Canada and elsewhere around the globe. She confirmed that there have been conversations with the Canadian Grain Commission.
“I know that there is definitely interest,” she said.
A spokesperson for the commission said its scientists are aware of the test and are monitoring it.
Hauvermale said the ultimate goal is to use the data from the new testing methodology to help breeders create new lines of wheat that are less susceptible to events that cause low falling numbers.
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