With an early harvest underway across the northern region, it’s judgement day for winter crop varieties that will be assessed on performance under this year’s harsh and variable conditions.
Frank McRae, Industry & Investment NSW (I&I NSW) cereal specialist, says northern growers should consider how current varieties compare with the benefits offered by new varieties.
Last year, more than 20 new crop varieties were released, many of which have improved yield and disease resistance relative to current popular varieties.
Dr Juan Juttner, Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) gene discovery manager, says choosing varieties with improved resistance is an important strategy, particularly for minimising costly stripe rust.
"While the dry finish across the northern grains region has contained the threat of stripe rust this year, the disease remains a high priority for GRDC," Dr Juttner says.
"Growers currently harvesting winter crops can assess yields of current varieties and we urge them to begin consideration of next year’s planting during this year’s harvest."
He says choosing a rust resistant variety is part of a three-pronged rust prevention strategy that also includes controlling the ‘green bridge’ of over-wintering volunteer cereal plants, and using seed dressings and fungicides where appropriate.
Dr Juttner says GRDC funded pre-breeding aims to develop superior varieties that enable growers to effectively compete in global grain markets.
He says four strategies are underway: to build and sustain world-leading breeding programs; focus pre-breeding research on key traits; develop a path to market for genetically modified crops; and facilitate faster adoption of superior varieties.
These strategies will be implemented by investing in gene discovery, breeding technologies, genetic resources, functional genomics, germplasm enhancement, genetic transformation, plant breeding, crop variety testing, grain quality research and plant pathology.
The performance of new crop varieties developed by national breeding programs is independently tested through the National Variety Trials (NVT).
Dr Juttner says for many growers their first encounter with a new variety will be through NVT.
"The release of a new variety is the culmination of many years work and investment in gene discovery, germplasm enhancement and plant breeding, both in Australia and across the globe," he says.
"Much of the program’s investment is in pre-breeding research to discover and validate novel genes, and to provide germplasm in which such genes have been successfully integrated."
For wheat, the GRDC target is to achieve an average annual yield increase of one per cent a year, as measured by the NVT.
Of the 14 wheat varieties released in 2008-09, some had yield improvements as great as 11pc more than commonly grown varieties suited to the same region, Dr Juttner says.
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