Western Australia
March 12, 2008
To help Western Australian
graingrowers make good choices from the potentially bewildering
and increasing number of available wheat varieties, the
Grains Research and Development
Corporation (GRDC) supported Wheat Variety Guide 2008
Western Australia has been released by the
Department of Agriculture
and Food WA (DAFWA).
It provides current information to assist with variety choice,
as well as management, for this winter growing season. New
varieties currently being evaluated for Western Australia's
conditions, plus adopted varieties with well established
performance, are listed.
GRDC Western Panel Member, Ben Curtis, a major contributor to
the Guide and Manager of the Variety Specific Agronomy project
at DAFWA, said many of the new varieties had good disease
resistance and some had excellent yield potential and adaptation
characteristics.
“Performance characteristics of commercially available wheats
and some pre-commercial lines are available from the Guide,” he
said.
Mr Curtis emphasised that all lines in the Guide had been tested
in the National Variety
Testing Project (NVT), or previously in wide-scale crop
variety testing (CVT) and some had also been tested in variety
specific agronomy projects.
Varieties are listed alphabetically in the Guide and annotated
to show wheat quality and if protected by Plant Breeders Rights.
Other listed parameters include disease resistance ratings and
agronomic and quality characteristics, such as seed size and
sprouting tolerance and herbicide tolerance.
Regional summaries for WA’s six agricultural zones deliver key
messages on yield, disease, sowing times, quality and economic
returns.
There is a comprehensive summary of 2007 variety ‘time of
sowing’ experiments and flowering dates from observation plots
in the northern, central and southern wheatbelt.
Wheat seed licensee and restrictions on grower to grower trade
are also listed.
The Wheat Variety Guide 2008 Western Australia is available from
DAFWA offices.
Other news
from
Department of Agriculture and Food WA |
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