Australia
October 4, 2011
A new high-yielding, disease-resistant desi chickpea variety suited to New South Wales is being launched this spring after six years of rigorous field testing.
The new Pulse Breeding Australia variety, PBA Boundary , offers increased ascochyta blight resistance over PBA HatTrick , but less resistance than PBA Slasher . PBA Boundary has a tall, erect plant type with excellent harvestability which can be grown in southern NSW, as well as northern NSW and southern Queensland.
PBA Boundary is broadly adapted to these regions and has shown a consistent and significant yield advantage over recently released desi varieties in northern Australia. In southern NSW, PBA Boundary has a five per cent higher yield than PBA HatTrick but is lower yielding than PBA Slasher . PBA Boundary is suitable for growers where good harvestability is a key criterion for their variety selection.
Development of the variety – which will be available through PBA’s desi chickpea commercial partner Seednet for the 2012 growing season – is supported by growers and the Australian Government through the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and PBA partner agencies.
GRDC manager pulse/oilseed breeding Brondwen MacLean said the new chickpea had consistently out-yielded current commercial varieties by two to nine per cent in northern PBA and National Variety Trials (NVT) since 2006.
“It is ideally suited to deep-sowing in zero-till farming systems allowing farmers to optimise their use of soil moisture,” Ms MacLean said.
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