KANSAS CITY — Jeffrey Smyth, president of Database Analysts Ltd., a consultant to milling and baking companies in Japan, will deliver the keynote speech at the Wheat Quality Council’s annual dinner set for Feb. 16 at the Embassy Suites airport hotel in Kansas City. Mr. Smyth will discuss the Japanese view of bioengineered wheat.

In addition to the keynote dinner presentation, the annual meeting and technical review scheduled for Feb. 15-17 will include a forum featuring five speakers:

• Drew Lerner, president and owner of World Weather, Inc., Kansas City, will provide an international wheat weather outlook for 2011.
• Greg Konsor, vice-president and general manager of grain at Gavilon, Omaha, will discuss the global and U.S. grain outlook, as well as Gavilon’s grain footprint.
• Forrest Chumley, president and chief executive officer of Heartland Plant Innovations, Inc., Topeka, Kas., will present “Everything old is new again: using wheat DH lines to accelerate wheat improvement.”
• Jim Peterson, vice-president of research for Limagrain Cereal Seeds in Fort Collins, Colo., will provide an introduction and update on Limagrain, where he has been working to build the company’s wheat breeding and seed program.
• William Wilson, professor in the Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics at North Dakota State University, Fargo, will discuss challenges and opportunities in the development of bioengineered wheat.

The W.Q.C. also will conduct its annual review of the qualities of breeder submitted lines of wheat grown in 2010, and for the first time there will be an update on the crop quality conditions of the winter wheat growing areas.

For more information contact Ben Handcock at bhwqc@aol.com or (605) 224-5187. Registration information also is available at www.wheatqualitycouncil.org.