In Kansas, amber waves of grain have typically meant bread on the table. But for some wheat farmers, it’s time to think outside the loaf and consider the pasta bowl.
Kansas has been hard winter wheat country for generations. However, in 2023, Kansas State University released its first commercially available winter durum wheat variety bred for the Central Plains, called “KS12D03-1.”
“We just call it D-1,” said Allan Fritz, a K-State wheat breeder.
Based on materials out of Austria and Romania, and using doubled haploid tools, it has been years in the making. And in the three years since its release to farmers, Fritz said it’s performing about as he expected. It’s routinely in the 90- to 100-bushel range on limited irrigation, making its yield competitive with common wheat.
And while there are a few things he’d like to tinker, this winter durum has a lot of potential to help wheat farmers in the field — and in their wallets.
Durum wheat is the smallest of the six classes of wheat grown in the U.S., at just 2.12 million acres harvested in 2025 for about 86.2 million bushels. In comparison, Kansas alone harvested 6.8 million acres of hard winter wheat in 2025.
Durum is a specialty wheat prized for its very hard — or vitreous — kernel that has a starch ideal for making semolina flour, which is used in pasta production. Typically, it’s grown as a spring crop in far northern states and Canada, with some “desert durum” grown in southwestern states.
Fritz and his predecessors at K-State have long held that if they could breed a winter durum that could perform in the central Great Plains production system, they could hit two targets for farmers. First, they could open new markets and new profit streams for wheat farmers. Second, growing that crop in a limited irrigation environment could help farmers make the most out of every drop applied.
Fritz’s selection work was done at the Colby K-State Research and Extension station, selecting for the western third of Kansas, down into the Oklahoma Panhandle and up into southwest Nebraska. That hot, dry environment is key to quality durum production.
Opening new markets
Looking at a different class of wheat for opportunities isn’t a new concept. Many farmers might remember the heyday of hard white winter wheat of the 1990s and 2000s.
With the lessons from white wheat in mind, it was important to Fritz that stakeholders up and down the grain chain were looped into the rollout of winter durum through the development process. So, the K-State team reached out to Farm Strategy, an ingredient supply chain builder, to develop the commercial market.
Chad Sager with Farm Strategy, Ellsworth, Kan., explained at a farmer meeting in January that the company builds ingredient supply chains, connecting durum buyers with local grain handlers who are delivery points for farmers.
So, rather than distributing the winter durum to seed dealers and hoping the market will follow, this strategy builds the grower networks and relationships with durum end-users at the same time the wheat is rolled out.
“If you wanted to deliver a truckload of durum to a pasta mill today, the closest one that’s going to dump a truck is probably North Dakota,” Sager said. “So, the market right now is built around railcar executions.”
That’s where Farm Strategy comes in, reaching out to local elevators and building out a network of delivery points where durum can be segregated and held for truck transportation to the pasta plant.
It’s important to know that durum also is a flat-priced commodity, Sager added, so there is no futures and basis component to it.
Looking at the Northern Plains and Canadian markets, pricing tracks closely with other wheat markets. Farmers typically can see a 50-cent to $1-per-bushel premium compared with local spring wheat prices.
“If you look back over a 20- to 25-year history, the range is quite wide — anywhere from even money to hard red spring wheat, to an $8- or $9-per-bushel premium,” Sager said.
He noted the grower price for the 2024 harvest was $9 a bushel, the 2025 harvest was $7.65, and as of the Jan. 14 meeting, the grower price for the 2026 harvest was $7.20 a bushel.
Lessons still being learned
Fritz said getting the variety to commercialization and setting up a market chain was the first step. Now it’s time to dig into the best agronomic practices for the crop. Winter durum has some particular quality metrics that need to be met with the right management. And chief among them is “hard vitreous kernels of amber color,” or HVAC.
Buyers want that hard and dark kernel with 13% protein for ideal pasta production, Sager said. Pasta makers are looking for protein in their end-products, and they need enough gluten in the grain to hold up under the extrusion process.
From seeding date to irrigation timing, fertility and more, Fritz is gathering data points from farmers who are currently raising the crop to meet the market requirements.
That includes Heath Koehn, Montezuma, Kan., who is growing his first winter durum crop under limited irrigation. He said the price for winter durum over the cash price of hard red winter wheat, as well as the ability to take his crop to the local elevator at Plains, Kan., was attractive.
“It’s a little bit of a higher risk, higher reward type of thing,” he said.
His rotation includes corn and winter canola, and he looked at winter durum based on water needs and the timing of the crop.
“The reason I like winter crops is because you’re more efficient when you irrigate,” Koehn said. “That’s why I’ve been looking at the winter canola and the winter durum for their water use compared to summer crops. We just evaporate so much more in the summer.”
Production under limited irrigation is an opportunity to grow more value from every drop of water, but Fritz said managing water applications to achieve optimal HVAC is key.
One factor in ensuring HVAC is forgoing that last pivot application that many hard wheat farmers would normally put on before harvest, Fritz said. It doesn’t benefit the crop, and it can actually harm the vitreous kernel target.
Other tips that Fritz and farmers like Koehn are learning include:
1. Seed winter durum about two weeks to a week earlier than hard winter wheat. Fritz said durum doesn’t tiller as well as common wheat, but it has a bigger seed and bigger head. Koehn said his durum took those extra weeks to put on tillers before winter, and when spring came, the crop was ready to go.
2. Do not plant durum after corn. This helps reduce the chance of head scab, which leads to vomitoxin and will discount the crop. Corn residue can host aflatoxin, which is the same thing that creates vomitoxin in wheat, so farmers must manage for that. Koehn planted his winter durum following a winter canola crop to make sure to avoid the problem.
3. Apply fungicide to keep diseases at bay. According to Fritz, durum may have stripe rust resistance, but growers should apply fungicide. This protects the investment in the higher-value crop, too.
4. Look out for wheat streak mosaic virus. The current winter durum variety is fairly susceptible to wheat streak mosaic virus, but might have some fair tolerance to triticum mosaic virus, Fritz said. His program is currently working to move the WSM2 and WSM3 genes from common wheats into future winter durums to provide resistance, but until that happens, he advises farmers in susceptible areas to factor that into their planting decisions.
Fritz said the winter durum breeding program at K-State is working to release future varieties that offer better dryland performance. Winter durum is a start, but there also are functional and nutritional characteristics in common wheat that the program may release in the future to bring profits to farmers in a future supply chain.
However, that work must start today for farmers to be ready tomorrow.
“I think if we want to be an important part of the landscape for Kansas, we need to find things that produce value, that will allow better profitability for our producers,” Fritz said.
You might even say he’s looking at the “pasta-bilities” of the future.