Australia
February 20, 2015
For busy graingrowers such as South Australia’s Modra brothers Justin and Ryan, the business end of the season at harvest is when everything needs to fall into place.
That’s the time they want ease of harvesting, no fuss threshing, clean samples and good yields.
And that’s exactly what they enjoyed late last year when they harvested their 24 hectares of Cosmick, InterGrain’s Australian Hard (AH) wheat, at Ungarra in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
Sown into canola stubble on May 16 at 85kg/ha, Cosmick was a top performer, yielding 4.19t/ha and recording a commendable test weight of 81.53kg/hl, an excellent result considering recent changes to test weight standards.
In 2015, the Modra brothers intend planting 100 ha of Cosmick.
Cosmick initially interested the Modras as a mid to short season AH alternative to Mace and because they were aware of its strong NVT performance, recording Mace type yields, plus they wanted to tap into Cosmick’s ability to provide genetic diversity within their variety portfolio.
Cosmick has been an outstanding performer in NVT in the past few years, performing particularly well in the medium to high rainfall areas and in broadacre paddock trials.
They were happy with Cosmick’s progress during the 2014 growing season, Justin noting that it had a moderate height, looked green and healthy all season and was free of leaf diseases. It received the same management and nutrition as other wheats on paddocks with similar history.
“Although Cosmick offers a moderate disease resistance profile, we’re always proactive with disease management, so we applied a preventative fungicide in early August, despite observing no signs of infection from yellow leaf spot,” Justin said.
Cosmick was harvested in the latter part of the Modra’s busy program and its standability was good, despite being left in the paddock for a while and there was no evidence of grain on the ground or any harvest lodging.
“Our Cosmick was easy to harvest, threshed well and produced a very clean sample. Ease of harvest is a very important trait when we consider adopting any new variety,” Justin said.
InterGrain Wheat East breeder and breeder of Cosmick, Chris Moore, said Cosmick offered South Australian growers a high yielding, early to mid season AH variety alternative for their programs.
“With its high yields, AH classification and good yellow leaf spot resistance, it is ideal for a first wheat following a canola, field pea or lentil crop,” Dr Moore said.
Cosmick seed is available for sowing in 2015 and can be purchased from registered InterGrain Seedclub members or your local reseller. For more information, contact InterGrain, Tel 08 9419 8000 or visit the website www.intergrain.com
Topics
Species
