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The Food Issue
2017
Grains
West
26
He gathered Marquis and a number of
other crosses as he began to investigate
their utility. There was only one problem:
it was winter and he had no lab for
chemistry, no mill for flour production
and no oven for baking. So, Charles
improvised. According to historian
Stephan Symko, “… he would take a
few grains from each stalk, chew them
and decide on their probable flour and
bread quality on the basis of the dough
created in his mouth.” Charles himself
said of the process, “I made more wheat
into gum than was made by all the boys
in any dozen rural schools.” He figured if
his teeth could substitute for a mill and his
mouth for an oven, he’d get results soon
enough, wrote Symko.
Charles must have had an educated
palate because Marquis was put forth as
Charles’ top choice of wheat following
his oral investigation. His work gained
such importance that he was eventually
knighted and given a $5,000 annual
pension from the Canadian government
in his later years.
By 1907, as Marquis seed samples
proliferated, they were sent to Indian
Head, SK, for further tests and
propagation. From Indian Head they
were sent to Brandon, MB, in 1908,
before being made public to farmers in
1909. Marquis had a trifecta of qualities
that made it superior to Red Fife: early
maturity, high yield and strong straw that
kept the crop from lodging (when a crop
falls over in the field, reducing quality and
complicating the harvesting process).
Farmers were ecstatic and so were grain
buyers, millers, bakers and customers.
In 1914, Marquis migrated south
to the United States. It only took one
growing season for Yankee farmers to be
converted. When the Great War ended
in 1918, more than 20 million acres of
Marquis were grown in North America.
The crop value of Marquis in Canada
alone in 1918 was US$259 million.
Combined with the four major crop-
producing American states of Montana,
the Dakotas and Minnesota, Marquis’
total crop value was US$629 million.
Marquis dominated the landscape
in Canada and grain-heavy American
states for more than 30 years following
the First World War. Even though it was
the Canadian government that received
credit for its Marquis, Charles said it was
“God Almighty” who was responsible for
the variety’s success.
Americans took note of Charles’
unheralded contributions to agriculture,
as well. “The greatest single advance in
wheat ever made by the United States
was the introduction of that class of hard
spring wheat known as Marquis wheat.
The idea came to us free of charge from
the Dominion of Canada’s Cerealist, Sir
Charles E. Saunders,” said James Boyle,
former U.S. secretary of agriculture.
THE NEXT GENERATION
In 1918, 14 million acres of spring wheat
were planted on the Prairies, with
Saskatchewan accounting for 9.1 million of
those acres. However, the need for new
varieties continued in theWest. Eventually,
Marquis’ reign came to an end, as farmers
had to work harder to prevent diseases
and abiotic stresses, such as wind, rain,
hail and snow, fromdestroying their farms.
SinceMarquis was a quintessentially
Canadian invention, it was the United
States’ time to return the favour.
University of Minnesota wheat
breeders eventually created a spring
wheat variety called “Thatcher” in 1935.
It was very similar to Marquis, but had
greater fungal resistance and matured
even earlier. Slowly but surely, Canadian
acres seeded to Marquis were converted
to the new variety. But in 1953 alone, 3.5
million acres of cropland were lost due to
disease pressure. A newwheat line called
“Selkirk” was released as an immediate
response, which managed to reduce
incidences of disease in the short term.
A short-lived but high-performing
variety named “Manitou” appeared
in 1965 for a few years before it
was overshadowed by the next big
breakthrough in 1969. Developed
inWinnipeg, “Neepawa” had all the
trappings of a winner: high yield, high
protein, strong disease resistance and
wide uptake by Prairie farmers. In fact,
Neepawa made history in 1980 when it
was declared that it had replacedMarquis
as the new standard against which all
other wheats would be measured. It was
the second time in Canada’s history a
wheat variety surpassed an established
line in terms of all-around quality.
A field of Marquis wheat at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. It was at this farm that Sir Charles Saunders
discovered the famed variety.
Photo:LibraryandArchivesCanada