Last week’s early rains throughout much of the State’s grainbelt have provided Western Australian growers with a great opportunity to plant long season wheat varieties. 

Department of Agriculture, Western Australia commercialisation officer Tresslyn Walmsley said the new soft wheat variety EGA Jitarning could be sown as early as the last week of April. 

Ms Walmsley said EGA Jitarning was a high yielding Australian Soft Wheat, with outstanding yields in Agzone 3, especially when sown early.

She said the variety had yielded well, and in Agzone 3 Crop Variety testing trials sown before May 31, it was the highest yielding soft variety and yielded four per cent higher than EGA 2248.

“EGA Jitarning is a later maturing variety than Spear and is suited to all traditional soft wheat growing areas in Western Australia,” Ms Walmsley said.

“It combines double rust resistance and high yields to provide growers with greater flexibility in management choices. 

“Yields of EGA Jitarning are complemented by good grain quality within soft wheat protein levels, large grain size and low screenings.”

Ms Walmsley said other benefits included stripe rust resistance equal to the highest available for its quality grade. 

She said EGA Jitarning also had intermediate resistance to powdery mildew which was better than all other Australian Soft Wheat varieties.

EGA Jitarning is licensed to Graintrust Pty Ltd and is sold through all major seed retailers and seed is available for 2005 plantings.  EGA Jitarning is protected by PBR and farmer to farmer trading is prohibited.