THE POTENTIAL to develop wheat varieties that are more robust at germination and are able to be planted deeper has researchers excited, with potential yield gains modelled to be up to 20 per cent.
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Greg Rebetzke, CSIRO researcher, has been working on a project looking at novel seed traits in wheat and found there were several big pluses if Australian croppers could plant their wheat deeper.
"The major one is obviously opening up the potential to be able to sow early and into warmer soils that help early growth without the fear of a false break where the seed germinates but there is not the moisture to allow it to continue to grow," Dr Rebetzke said.
He said the major driver of varieties able to be deep sown would be working with long coleoptile wheat genetics.
The coleoptile is a protective sheath which encloses the emerging shoot and first leaves.
The longer the coleoptile is, the greater the emergence potential when deep sowing.
Dr Rebetzke said work with long coleoptile wheats showed they could be sown at depths of more than 10 centimetres, making better use of stored soil moisture.
He said the benefits from the long coleoptile varieties could be substantial.
"The modelling has shown there could be yield gains of between 18-20pc depending on the region, with low and medium rainfall zones likely to be big winners."
Modelled yield gains show more than 1 tonne to the hectare in increased yields in mid-season wheat sown on May 10 in much of central Victoria, while long season wheat sown April 10 on the Eyre Peninsula would see similar gains.
Dr Rebetzke said access to stored moisture for summer rain early in the season would be a big boost to plant health.
"Long coleoptiles will allow timely, earlier germination and crop growth, there will be increased plant numbers which will help with competitiveness against weeds and the greater crown root growth we see will see more rapid nutrient uptake."
"These long coleoptile lines will be a very good tool in improving water use efficiency and early vigour and competitiveness."
He said the research would be critical in helping Australian winter croppers manage what is emerging as a key constraint - late and inconsistent autumn breaks.
"We're seeing later autumn breaks and more risks with dry sowing, while at the same time there is often more stored moisture from summer rain, which is increasing in many areas so anything that helps plants access that deep moisture early is going to be well worthwhile."
But it was not just the gains in water use efficiency that had Dr Rebetzke excited.
He said trials from Western Australia had showed deep sowing may lessen the risk of soil borne diseases such as rhizoctonia.
"We saw in the trials that shallow sown crops had loads of issues with rhizo, but the deep sown plots did not."
Other initiatives in wheat breeding that Dr Rebetzke suggested keeping an eye on included high vigour late sown wheats.
"We may need a replacement for the H45 type variety that goes in late."
"There are a number of reasons growers could need a later variety, firstly the big sowing programs these days mean it is difficult to get over all the area required in a timely fashion if you're sowing all early to mid-season varieties."
"It is also good to have an option should we have a really late break that can still present good vigour even when soil temperatures have cooled off, while summer croppers would welcome an option that allows them a longer window when looking to double crop paddocks."