Joaquin Oro come from the variety Joaquin which is is a hard red spring wheat. WB-Joaquin Oro is a hard red spring wheat bred and developed by WestBred, a unit of Monsanto Company. It was released in 2011 WB-Joaquin Oro was selected for similarity to “Joaquin” for morphological, agronomic and quality traits. The breeding method was backcross. WB-Joaquin Oro is adapted to the wheat growing areas of the San Joaquin Valley in California. The primary use will be for flour to make raised loaf bread. WB-Joaquin Oro is resistant to the current field races of stripe rust in California. It is susceptible to Septoria tritici.

Sonora, a soft white landrace wheat, has a history here in the Southwestern United States, because it is a variety grown early by the agricultural Native Americans in Mexico. They used it to make their whole wheat tortillas, and apparently liked the way it could be ground to a whole wheat flour on their metate. Sonora wheat might be the very first wheat successfully introduced onto the American continent soon after Columbus’s famous journey of discovery in 1492. It was grown in the Southwest continuously until about 1960.