Versatile crop often overlooked for its benefits

Acid soil tolerance, wet soil tolerance, generally good disease resistance, and with varieties suited to dual-purpose grazing and others to grain only, triticale as a crop offers more than is generally appreciated.

Unfortunately, low recognition also has a tendency for low injection of research dollars.

The last dual-purpose triticale to be released, Kokoda, was developed by Sydney University's Jeremy Roake.

The program, which was terminated due to a lack of industry funding, impresses for grazing and grain recovery, and a good disease resistance package.

In many respects, it behaves much like winter habit oat variety Eurabbie and winter wheat habit varieties like Illabo.

For many districts, they can be sown early (late February or early March) and remain in the vegetative phase to about the end of July.

They then transition to spring habit type and develop heads that move up the stem for good grain recovery.

For years we have been growing Eurabbie oats for this role because much of our oat country has acidic soils well down the profile.

Lime corrects top soil acidity and high aluminium toxicity if well mixed into the soil before sowing, but has little impact on subsoil acidity.

Hence the need for acid-tolerant varieties.

Eurabbie is an excellent oat variety, but with no dual-purpose oat breeding program for many years, there seems little chance of seeing the release of similar varieties but with improved rust resistance.

However, another type of oat variety commonly used for grazing only, sometimes combined with limited seed production, has spring habit and late maturity.

This type is regularly updated with new releases, commonly initially with good rust resistance.

They tend not to suit the dual-purpose role, maturing too late for reliable grain yield and tend to run prematurely to head when sown in the early time slot.

In our dual-purpose winter crop program, we, like many landholders, address rust risk in oats with appropriate in-crop fungicides, which has been successful for autumn disease control.

However, DPI and LLS trials in the central west have shown that Kokoda triticale can perform well in an early sown dual-purpose role but without the risk of any of the rusts.

It is rated 'resistant to moderately resistant' to stripe, stem and leaf rust.

Kokoda also likely has good tolerance to root-lesion nematodes and cereal cyst nematodes.

Triticale, as a group, has good tolerance to Septoria tritici blotch and good tolerance to yellow spot, two important wet year leaf diseases.

Resistance to barley yellow virus also seems good.

Semi-awned, verses fully awned, is another good Kokoda attribute if saving for hay.

Grain quality, based on limited trials, indicates improved metabolisable energy for pig and poultry feeding and higher starch and lower fibre compared to some other varieties.

It is also used for specialist beer production.

Being the third wet autumn/winter year in a row in many areas, triticale's improved tolerance to waterlogging is worthwhile.

Triticale, according to some research, also exhibits useful added tolerance to some conditions associated with high pH soils like boron toxicity.

On the negative side, triticale is rated more frost susceptible in the heading period than most wheat varieties and so more suited to paddocks with a lower risk of late spring frosts.

For grain, only triticale has a range of varieties with high yielding potential, both for acid and non-acid soils.

In good non-acid growing conditions, triticale can at least equal wheat and sometimes outyield it.

Leading grain-only varieties include Fusion, with versatility and mid-maturing, Astute, according to NVT trials, the highest yielder and with mid-maturity, and Bison, again with good yield and quick maturing type.

These varieties are rated with good resistance to stem and leaf rust but not stripe rust.

Sowing rates, especially for dual-purpose production, need to be higher than for wheat.

Suggested rates for dual-purpose production are around 100kg/ha.

Southern NSW consulting agronomist David Bushell, feels Kokoda has another excellent role in early sown multispecies crops for winter fodder production.

Mixtures that include cereal rye, Kokoda, Eurabbie, vetch and ryegrass suit early sowing, and provide early, mid to late winter and early spring high-quality feed.

Next week: Sunflowers, a summer crop option with many credits.