Last year more than 400 new barley lines were imported into the state as part of a joint initiative of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, the University of Western Australia and the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

As part of the Western Region Barley Program, barley germplasm from as far afield as Portugal, the United States, China, Canada, Germany and the Czech Republic is being used to help improve Western Australian barley varieties 

“New lines are selected because they contain unique germplasm with traits of particular interest to Western Australian growers and are then evaluated to determine how well adapted they are to local conditions,” said Research Officer Ms Christina Grime.

“While in the past some barley varieties from international breeding programs found a niche in Western Australia, it is rare for direct imports to adapt to our unique climate and soils whilst still producing malting barley of the quality demanded by the markets,” Ms Grime said.

“We introduce new barley germplasm into established Western Australian barley varieties using traditional plant breeding techniques.  In this way, the Department of Agriculture’s barley breeders can build on the established agronomic performance of current barley varieties whilst capturing the new traits from the imported germplasm.”

One recent success story has been Hamelin, a barley variety recently released by DAWA. The Canadian variety Harrington was introduced through the UWA germplasm project and crossed to the local variety Stirling to produce Hamelin – a variety with Canadian-type malting quality in an Australian adapted background, allowing direct competition with Canada in markets such as China.

The unique characters that Ms Grime looks for in introduced barley lines include improved resistance to common diseases such as net blotches, powdery mildew and scald.

“Resistant lines are identified and forwarded on to DAWA barley breeders and pathologists for further testing and use in breeding programs” Ms Grime said.

 “We also target lines which have enhanced grain quality traits that are desired by barley markets for feed grain, malting barley and Shochu, a Japanese distilled spirit that is produced from high quality barley.

“And of course agronomic potential is a key selection criterion. For example, lines imported from Chile, Brazil and Mexico have been shown to have good tolerance to acid soils and are potential parents to increase yields in affected soil types.”

DAWA’s breeders, pathologists and agronomists work closely with Ms Grime to identify gaps in current barley varieties for future introductions.

“The Western Malting Barley Council is also very supportive of this work” Ms Grime said, “they provide industry input from growers, grain marketers and maltsters and brewers into the introduction and evaluation process”.

The University of Western Australia germplasm project also aids the National Barley Molecular Marker Program through phenotyping of selected cross populations for traits such as reaction to leaf scald and extended photoperiod.

Ms Grime said that with the facility based in Perth, researchers have access to the latest germplasm more quickly than going through the Australian Winter Cereals Collection in Tamworth, and this enables greater efficiency, control and focus for importation.