The Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) is moving ahead on its planned wheat class modernization, with two new classes coming into effect on August 1.

The first class, Canada Western Special Purpose, will have no quality parameters and include registered varieties without quality data.

The other class, Canada Northern Hard Red, will become home to the 29 varieties of CWRS and CPSR that were previously announced for re-designation.

"The Canada Northern Hard Red class is going to be another milling class, but will have some parameters that are different that the current classes that we have. Those parameters will be finalized later in February at the Prairie Grain Development meetings," says the CGC's quality assurance standards program manager Daryl Beswitherick.

After the new crop missions last year, which connected the CGC, Cereals Canada, and Canadian International Grains Institute with international buyers, Beswitherick says customers are happy to see Canada is looking at the wheat class structure and trying to protect the Canada Western Red Spring class.

"That is our class of wheat that's known around the world, that is the number one class," he says, "so they're happy we're making some moves to protect that class, and part of that process is to create this new class of wheat - which could potentially open up some new markets for producers to be able to grow different types of wheat and deliver to new markets."

While these new classes take effect this August, the redesigned varieties won't switch classes until 2018.

Three wheat classes will also be eliminated this year, with the Canada Western Interim Wheat, Canada Western General Purpose, and Canada Western Feed wheat classes becoming null on August 1.