New Washington State University spring wheat variety named for Black family with deep roots in Washington

Editor’s Note: Northwest Public Broadcasting acknowledges that all of what’s now Washington state is Indigenous lands. Northwest tribal peoples were killed, displaced and unjustly removed from those lands. Despite attempts to eradicate and displace Indigenous people, they still remain a part of this land.

The brand new Bush wheat out of Washington State University is named for the Bush family. You might not have heard of them of until now. 

Settler George Bush was a Black pioneer on the Oregon Trail. He aided Indigenous populations battling disease, saved fellow settlers during the famine of 1852 and helped develop what’s now the city of Tumwater, a recent Washington State University Insider story said.

“The family just, it’s an remarkable story of persistence and  coming and pioneering not just … the state, and what would become a big part of our country, but actually pioneering agriculture here in the region,” said Mike Pumphrey, the new spring wheat breeder with Washington State University, who developed Bush wheat. “Including the sort of civic aspects of that, and public support and university education and all of those things that have truly been a big part of the development of Washington.” 

The home of William Owen Bush, son of pioneer George Bush, stood on the original Bush land claim at Tumwater, Washington.
(Credit: Washington State Historical Society)

The settler 

Bush was born in the late 1700s in Pennsylvania. In 1844, he started on the Oregon Trail with his family, heading west from Missouri. 

“Excluded from southern Oregon on account of his race, he pioneered the northern spur of the Oregon Trail, helping establish a settlement called New Market that was soon renamed Tumwater, Washington,” the Insider article said.

A successful farmer and innkeeper, Bush often helped Native American tribes during disease epidemics and was known for his generosity to other settlers.

“Bush developed a farm that was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the most valuable and productive in early Washington,”  Darrell Millner said, in an article in Columbia Magazine. “His personal qualities of humanity, generosity, hospitality, warmth and charity led him to aid many later arrivals in ways that made their successful settlement possible, winning him tremendous respect and admiration from other pioneers.” 

At that time, Black people were not allowed to claim land like white settlers in the new territories. Washington’s territorial legislature asked Congress to grant the family rights to their farm on what was known as Bush Prairie. When Bush died in 1863, he held land but not the right to vote, according to the Insider.

William Owen Bush, circa 1890. A new Washington State University wheat variety has been named after him and his father, George.
(Credit: Washington State Historical Society)

His eldest son and WSU

The farm passed to Bush’s eldest son, William Owen Bush. William was elected to the Legislature when Washington became a state. He helped cement Washington State University’s future, authoring an early bill and joining the committee that developed the new agricultural college and the school of science, Insider said.

Pumphrey hopes more people will learn the story of the Bush family and their connection with WSU because of the new wheat’s name. When looking for a name for his new wheat, Pumphrey was Googling around the web this February looking for a historically important name associated with wheat from the Northwest. That’s when he came upon the Bush story. 

Pumphrey now calls the Bush family some of the best farmers and later ambassadors for Northwest crops in that time. 

“Although the first years are you imagine, are kind of rough when you’re breaking open new land, the fact that in just a handful of years they stood out as excellent crop stewards,” Pumphrey said. “They had this ability to produce crops that literally saved their neighbors and others around because of the abundance.” 

Mike Pumphrey, of Washington State University, in southeast Washington on on June 18, 2024.
(Credit: Washington Grain Commission)

Bush wheat

Bush wheat, the new variety, is a cross between WSU’s popular, 10-year-old Tekoa variety and two experimental varieties.

The first cross of Bush wheat was made in 2018, and it’s been tested and developed since. 

After about four years, Pumphrey chose to replicate the experimental variety  — known then as WA8351 — raising about 60,000 pounds by this spring, according to the Insider.

The wheat is resistant to the fungus strip rust, drought and even the Hessian fly, an invasive insect, which can plague farmers’ fields and weaken wheat stands.  

The new wheat has been tested in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wheat quality labs at WSU.

“New varieties are important because we can improve the agronomic characteristics such as yields, the drought resistance and disease resistance,” said Casey Chumrau, head of the Washington Grain Commission. “It also helps with the end use or how the wheat performs for both the miller and the baker.” 

Bush wheat is what’s called a soft white spring variety, and is good for both Asian and domestic cakes, cookies, noodles and crackers.

Pumphrey said the fresh wheat is being grown as seed in irrigated fields this year, and will be widely available to farmers in 2025 for production planting.

“The seed industry has already bought in, so to speak,” he said. “It will be the dominant variety of this type in the state looking two years forward. It’s nice to have a meaningful name to back that up.”