It’s been a tough year for many Australian farmers, with the eastern states in drought and much of south-eastern Australia experiencing one of the driest finishes on record.
The latest statistics by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARES) forecast that winter crop production would decrease by 23 per cent in 2018/19 to 29.3 million metric tonnes (mmt).
While it’s been a bad year for yield – 20 per cent below the 20-year average, the unfavourable conditions have provided farmers and breeders with an opportunity to test Australia’s most popular wheat and barley varieties up against the newcomers in extremely dry conditions.
The good news is, most of the stalwarts have shown they can take the heat, while a list of new varieties have proven their worth in a very tough test.
Scepter performs in tough finish
While Mace was the dominant wheat variety for many years, the relatively new kid on the block, Scepter, has been taking over from Mace in terms of popularity since its release in 2015.
A variety developed by Australian Grain Technologies (AGT), Scepter, has consistently outperformed Mace in yield trials from Western Australia (WA), through South Australia (SA) and Victoria (VIC), and into southern New South Wales (NSW), over a range of seasons and conditions.
“Across the 70 locations that Scepter and Mace were tested head-to-head in the 2018 National Variety Trials (NVT), Scepter beat Mace at 61 of them,” AGT CEO and Head of Breeding, Haydn Kuchel said.
“Long term NVT data from 2014 to 2018 shows that Scepter is seven per cent higher yielding than Mace in both WA and SA”.
“If there was ever a year to challenge Scepter, 2018 was it, but we’re happy to see another excellent result.
“Across the board, it’s been great to see that Scepter has proven to still be our best player in the market.”
Quick maturing varieties win the race
New quicker maturing varieties Razor CL Plus and Sunprime also performed well this year.
“Razor CL Plus is our new Clearfield variety that is well adapted to low and medium rainfall environments, so it’s ideal for growers in southern Australia, particularly in drought,” Haydn said.
“Razor CL Plus is derived from Mace and as a result performs similarly in terms of adaptation, but is slightly quicker to mature and therefore has often shown a yield advantage at sites suffering terminal drought stress, which is why it performed well this year.”
NSW was certainly hit hard by the drought in 2018, and the short growing season played into the hands of the quicker finishing varieties.
“Sunprime was launched last year in NSW and went quite well, beating Suntop by four per cent in yield,” Haydn said.
“Sunprime is a fast maturing APH quality wheat that gives NSW and QLD growers the opportunity to plant later in the main season sowing window.
“It’s also a good news story as it was launched in celebration of the GrainGrowers’ 60th Anniversary in October last year and has subsequently performed really well for farmers.”
“Ultimately, it’s been a year of reckoning for some of our most popular wheat varieties and most of them have performed well, which is good news for growers who have invested in the newer varieties,” Haydn said.
A standout performer from InterGrain this year was Vixen, which is an early maturing Australian Hard (AH) variety.
InterGrain Marketing Manager Ashleigh Brooks said that Vixen showed its broad adaptation in the tougher season, finishing in national trials, on average, eight to nine per cent higher than Mace, and three per cent higher yielding than Scepter.
“We’ve also seen Vixen in WA NVT’s, performing really well, showing its ability to yield in a shorter, although high yielding growing season,” Ashleigh said.
“Vixen is a good alternative to Scepter for growers looking for an earlier maturing AH, with exceptional yield, improved stripe rust resistance (MRMS) and a moderate plant height, reducing stubble loads in high yielding environments.”
Spartacus CL still a national warrior
In spite of the tough season in the east and more favourable conditions in the west leading variety Spartacus CL continues to perform well for growers nationally.
“Spartacus CL is still a paddock leader, with high yield, malt accreditation, early maturity and tolerance to the Intervix herbicide, coupled with a robust disease profile and good grain quality package,” Ashleigh said.
“It also has good straw strength and a low risk of head loss.
“There’s also a comfort factor there – growers are familiar with La Trobe and Spartacus CL and they know they can handle the tougher seasons.”
La Trobe, which received malt accreditation in 2015 continues to perform consistently due to its early maturity and solid disease profile.
“While growers have been happy with La Trobe’s performance over the past 5 years we are seeing many transitions to Spartacus CL to enable use of the Clearfield technology within the barley phase of the rotation,” Ashleigh said.
New varieties on the table for 2019
In SA and VIC, APW variety Sheriff CL Plus provides a high yielding, earlier sowing, Clearfield Plus wheat option for growers, in a maturity class where there are currently few varietal alternatives.
Vixen was released last spring at the Baker Seed Co. Field Day and is available for sowing in 2019.
“Vixen’s consistently high yields, challenging Scepter, across a range of seasons and environments is certainly very attractive,” Ashleigh said.
In WA, a new variety called Devil, which was released in spring for the 2019 season, has performed exceptionally in WA 2018 NVT trials, on average, three per cent higher than Scepter.
“Devil is an early to mid-maturing variety, providing WA growers with a varietal alternative to Scepter,” Ashleigh said.
“It’s an AH and APWN variety, has good yellow spot resistance, and seed sales have been very pleasing to date, so we should see a large number of farmers across WA growing it this year.”
The WA noodle wheat industry also remains strong.
Kinsei, a late maturing, Australian Noodle Wheat (ANW) is providing farmers with an option, ideal for maximising early sowing opportunities.
Noodle variety Ninja (ANW) has also been a consistent performer this year, with similar yields to Mace in WA.
Feed barleys prove popular
Given the enormous domestic demand for feed grain in NSW and QLD, feed barley varieties have also been under the spotlight this year, with Rosalind, a mid-maturing feed barley doing well in National Variety Trials again, delivering outstanding yields and yield stability.
“2013 to 2017 long-term national NVT results have proven Rosalind is the highest yielding barley, this combined with its strong agronomic package, make it an ideal option for growers focused on growing high yielding feed barleys,” Ashleigh said.
“There’s also been a lot of discussion around Buff in the lower rainfall areas of WA with its stellar NVT performance. The variety is currently classified as feed whilst undergoing malt accreditation. It is an early maturing, white aleurone, acid soil tolerant variety, the first available to growers, marking a significant breakthrough in barley breeding.”
Scepter quality and yield “remarkable”
Ben Wundersitz is a grower based in central Yorke Peninsula, SA, and saw the lowest rainfall in the area since 1982 last season, down on average by 40 per cent.
With over 6000ha of land ranging from low rainfall areas near Price, SA, where the average is 200mm; to higher rainfall areas such as Maitland, SA, where average rainfall can be up to 500mm, Ben grows four varieties of wheat, two varieties of barley, lentils and canola.
“When it comes to wheat, we grow Trojan, Scepter, Chief and Grenade, and considering the season we were very happy with the performance of all of our varieties,” Ben said.
“We’ve built up Chief to replace Grenade as our Clearfield variety, and have been pretty happy with how it performed this year, in spite of the low rainfall.”
While yields were down, Ben says Scepter still managed to yield relatively well, in spite of the low rainfall.
“Scepter did really well everywhere, it’s our most reliable wheat. We didn’t have any of our Scepter wheat downgraded this year, with no test weight problems at all, which says a lot about how robust it is, it’s just a great variety to have,” he said.
“In addition to the high quality of the wheat, Scepter performed remarkably well in terms of yield, considering how dry the season was.”
Trojan was the only wheat variety that underperformed, however, Ben said this was more to do with where it was, rather than the quality of the variety itself.
“Trojan suffered a bit more than the rest this year, but it’s hard to quantify because the areas we had it in were prone to frost,” he said.
“With everything considered, it was a surprisingly solid year, so we won’t be changing anything in our rotation.”
Ben says he’s just waiting for the rain now, to decide if he uses Scepter or Chief in the areas he applied a Clearfield herbicide.
“We’ve cleaned and prepared seed from both Chief and Scepter, but it will depend on how much rainfall we get between now and sowing as to which variety we’ll sow.
“If we don’t get at least 250mm of rain we’ll have to go with Chief because of Clearfield residue.
“We’ll also be carrying on with Spartacus for our barley crops, as it tends to grow well in our climate and is also Clearfield resistant. We may also sow Compass in the coastal areas as it has good vigour and growth, which provides plenty of stubble cover for the lower rainfall areas.”