A hard red winter wheat, Lonerider is a descendant of Duster and Billings, two other popular OSU-bred varieties. Widely fit for Western plains. Standability and short stature good for maximizing irrigated yields. Early maturity. Acid-soil tolerant. Very large kernel size. Good end-use quality at target HRW protein levels.

 

Along with exceptional straw strength, other unique characteristics of this newest variety include its short stature, very early finish and unusually large kernel size.

“Testimonial to its name, Lonerider led other entries submitted to the 2016 U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service Southern Regional Performance Nursery, after averaging grain yields across sites stretching from Texas to South Dakota,” said Brett Carver, lead researcher for OSU’s Wheat Improvement Team. “This nursery is a public-private cooperative featuring the best germplasm from wheat breeding programs across the Great Plains.”

While Lonerider is capable of thriving throughout the western half Oklahoma as well as in neighboring states, it will perform best in the western third of Oklahoma, including the Panhandle.

“Among the varieties released by OSU going back to the days of Billings, Lonerider has the capability to go west better than any of them. Furthermore, Lonerider appears well adapted to northwest Kansas and to areas well into Nebraska, thus we expect this variety to show resilience to a wide range of environmental conditions it’s likely to experience in western Oklahoma,”  Carver said.