Australia
February 23, 2015
Kevin Avery was impressed when Western Australia Minister for Agriculture, Ken Baston, last Friday launched and named IGW3526, the InterGrain wheat variety he successfully trialled last season, Impress CL Plus.
Cropping about 1800 hectares at Manmanning, approximately 230km north east of Perth, Mr Avery uses the Clearfield Plus system and its imidazolinone chemistry in his cropping program to optimise control of hard to kill problem weeds, such as brome, barley and spear grass.
InterGrain’s new Impress CL Plus, APW wheat is a mid to short season maturing variety with strong yellow spot resistance (MR-MS rating). Its improved yield and disease resistance, particularly to yellow spot, is an advantage in wheat-on-wheat rotations.
This trait also provides increased grower flexibility when following other IT crops.
A Wyalkatchem type, Impress CL Plus has a short coleoptile and a similar height, plant type and tillering capacity to Wyalkatchem. These variety characteristics, coupled with its large grain size, mean that sowing rates must be kept up to achieve desired plant density and maximise yield.
In order to attend a wedding overseas, Mr Avery planted his Impress CL Plus last year quite early (May 4), at seeding rates of 60 kg/ha and 80kg/ha, adjacent to Justica CL Plus.
The paddock grew Clearfield STL in 2013, hence there was a reasonable level of inoculum of yellow spot to potentially infect his 2014 crop.
He noted, however, that yellow spot infection was more severe on the Justica CL Plus than on the Impress CL Plus, so much so that the Flag-1 was gone on the Justica, while the Impress Flag-1 leaf was totally green and had a noticeably greener canopy.
“Late in the growing season I was delighted to see bigger heads, probably a spikelet longer, in the Impress. Also, I was comforted to see its very large grain size, which I felt should help with yield and reduce the likelihood of high screenings in a harsh finish,” Mr Avery said.
However, it was at harvest, or the business end of the season as Mr Avery puts it, that he was really impressed with the performance of the new InterGrain wheat variety.
Impress CL Plus yielded about 1.8 tonnes/ha, or 15 per cent more than the Justica and its protein percentage was higher, putting it into the APW2 grade.
“Superior yellow spot resistance was obvious earlier in the year and I think this might be why Impress delivered more yield and protein,” Mr Avery said.
“I was so impressed with how the new InterGrain wheat went in 2014, considering the season we had, that I anticipate moving totally over to Impress CL Plus from Justica,” Mr Avery said.
Impress CL Plus was bred by Dr Dan Mullan and the InterGrain wheat breeding team.
Seed is available from registered InterGrain Seedclub Members or local resellers.
For more information, please contact InterGrain’s David Meharry, Mobile 0427 855 059 or email dmeharry@intergrain.com
Australian standard wheat varieties are hexaploid i.e. they genetically comprise three sets of paired chromosomes, or genomes. Two-gene wheat varieties have a separate mutation on a second genome so that two of their three genomes produce ALS enzyme that is unaffected by imidazolinone herbicides. The other single genome lacks a mutation and produces sensitive ALS enzyme. Two-gene wheat varieties are, effectively, two-thirds tolerant to imidazolinone herbicides.
For information on the BASF Clearfield ® Production stewardship please refer to:
http://www.agro.basf.com.au/images/pdf/clearfield/Clearfield_Brochure_web.pdf
Topics
Species
