An awnless hard red winter wheat that was developed for grazing, but in addition to high forage yields it also has a great grain yield throughout Texas, he said.

The seed heads of most hard winter wheat varieties have awns or beards that are typically about an inch long, Rudd said. In awnless wheat varieties, the awns are very short or non-existent.

“Cattle grazing wheat after the seed heads have emerged are “annoyed” by the bristly awns in their face and generally prefer awnless wheat,” he said. “The awnless trait makes it a lot more valuable for those wanting to graze it out.”

The parentage of TAM 204 includes the popular drought-tolerant TAM 112 and Jagger, which was well known for excellent fall grazing, he said.

“TAM 204 also has one of the better insect resistance packages we’ve ever had: it’s resistant to greenbugs, Hessian fly and it also has wheat curl mite resistance. That wheat curl mite resistance is important, because the mite is the vector for wheat streak mosaic virus.”

He said because wheat planted for grazing often is planted early, greenbug and Hessian fly pressure increases, along with leaf rust and stripe rust sometimes, and “definitely early planted wheat is more vulnerable to the wheat streak mosaic virus.

“Having built-in resistance is a real good thing for the grazing wheat,” Rudd said, adding TAM 204 is resistant to stripe and stem rust, and has intermediate resistance to leaf rust.

“Also the acid soil tolerance and soil-borne mosaic virus resistance of TAM 204 allow it to be grown in areas of North Texas and South Central Oklahoma where these production constraints exist.”

Steve Brown, Texas Foundation Seed Service manager in Vernon, emphasized how important the TAM 204 grain-yielding capabilities were, saying many producers in the Rolling Plains graze Weathermaster 135.

“It’s kind of an old standard, and the yield differential is as much as 20 bushels per acre,” Brown said.

Foundation seed is the first step in the commercial process to produce the certified seed that is sold to growers.

“This step is designed to assure seed purity and variety integrity during the commercial life of the variety,” he said.