EIGHT wheat, 12 canola, two field pea, five barley, and two chickpeas are among newly released varieties for growing from 2021 onwards.
Details plus updated management information on issues like disease is included in the recently released NSW DPI Winter crop variety sowing guide.
Release of new varieties is based on independent variety testing (like GRDC funded National Variety Trial program) for aspects like resistance to important diseases and yield, commonly over at least two-to-three years. Hence their release mainly indicates progress in yield ability, often agronomic type, plus resistance to some important diseases. NSW DPI senior agronomists Peter Matthews, Don McCaffery and Leigh Jenkins collate all this information and copies of the guide will be available from NSW DPI, LLS and agribusiness stores.
Rust in wheat is a need to update on variety management. Five stripe rust pathotypes were identified from surveys and collection in 2020 and these were all likely to be present in 2021 given the good rainfall through summer and autumn to carry-over rust on volunteer cereals. Updated variety resistance ratings are detailed in the guide with some varieties having important disease rating changes since 2020. Hence if disease outbreaks occur changed management is indicated for these.
Stem and leaf rust in wheat and oats were common in 2020 and are possible disease threats for 2021. Again assessing a variety's resistance rating is important, as is regular monitoring of possible disease development, for best assessing management options for a given variety, like fungicide use.
Crop surveys through NSW showed high levels of fusarium crown rot in wheat crops. Authors of the guide urge growers to test for crown rot inoculum levels prior to sowing using the PreDicta B test. This is important if paddocks have a cereal crop history or cereal stubble present, and if considering sowing durum crops, which are very susceptible to crown rot.
The guide contains information on commercially available crop varieties that might be suited to NSW, but it does not include all varieties available and might not include outclassed varieties, interstate released varieties or niche market varieties. Yield performance data is available from the NVT site (www.nvtonline.com.au) on varieties included and tested in NVT trials across NSW.
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Wheats released include spring varieties, Ballista, Coota, Hammer CL Plus, LongReach Stealth, Sunblade CL Plus, Suncentral, Sunflex and Sunmaster. One long season red feed winter wheat, Anapurna, is released for high rainfall zones.
One new malt variety; Maximus CL, and four feed barley varieties; Beast, Laperouse, Nitro and Commodus CL were released for NSW. Two current varieties were upgraded to malt classification by Barley Australia; Alestar and Leabrook. The authors suggest to check before growing any new malt barley variety that local segregation is available for that variety, or if farm storage is required before delivery to a buyer.
Twelve new canolas include Hyola Blazer TT, InVigor T 6010 and SF Dynatron TT, all TT hybrids. Monola 420TT a new specialty oil open-pollinated variety and Monola H421TT a specialty oil hybrid. Pioneer 44Y94 (CL) a 'spring' Clearfield hybrid. Hyola Feast CL and RGT Nizza CL are new 'winter' graze and grain Clearfield hybrids. InVigor R 4520P and Nuseed Condor TF are TruFlex with Roundup Ready technology hybrids. Hyola Garrison XC a 'stacked' herbicide tolerant (TruFlex with Roundup Ready + Clearfield) hybrid. Hyola Enforcer CT a 'stacked' herbicide tolerant (Clearfield + TT) hybrid. The variety characteristics table is updated based on phenology research in 2020.
Two new chickpea are CBA Captain, a high yielding medium sized desi type suited to all Australian growing regions and PBA Magnus, a very large seeded and high yielding kabuli type, suited to medium rainfall regions in south-eastern Australia.
Two new field pea varieties are GIA Kastar, the first Kaspa-type variety with improved tolerance to common in-crop and residual Group B imidazolinone herbicides, and GIA Ourstar, the first dun-type variety with improved tolerance to imidazolinone and sulfonylurea herbicides.
Next week: Maintain grass pasture soil fertility.
- Bob Freebairn is an agricultural consultant based at Coonabarabran. Email robert.freebairn@bigpond.com or contact 0428 752 149.