The 2019 Victorian Winter Crop Summary is now available to support growers with their variety choices ahead of next year’s sowing programs.
It is the first time the publication has been released in spring, providing growers with an earlier opportunity to consider their variety options for the season ahead.
The Victorian Winter Crop Summary is now available and arriving soon in growers’ letter boxes, has been published by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) in partnership with Agriculture Victoria.
GRDC’s National Variety Trials (NVT) acting senior manager, Rob Wheeler, says the publication is an important resource for Victorian growers as it provides the most up to date information on disease resistance ratings and variety performance at a time when growers are planning their seed requirements for 2019.
"The Winter Crop Summary assists growers in making the best variety decisions for their individual situations," Mr Wheeler says.
"It prompts growers to ask whether they are growing the best variety for their location, environment and farming system.
"Growers are encouraged to use the summary as a guide for discussion with their consultants, advisers and marketing agents."
Mr Wheeler says the majority of grain yield and quality data provided in the summary is sourced from the GRDC NVT program of comparative crop variety testing, with data from some breeding trials added to the information available.
"Results from the NVT program are also used by pathologists to determine disease resistance ratings presented in the Winter Crop Summary. It is important that growers check the disease resistance ratings each year for any changes from the previous season.
"Overall, the summary brings together NVT data from the previous season, long term multi-environment trial yield predictions, disease ratings, quality data and agronomic information."
Victorian Winter Crop Summary editor Johanna Couchman, from Agriculture Victoria, says the publication for 2019 contains some new varieties for growers’ consideration.
"The summary includes several new bread wheats – Cobalt
, DS Bennett, EG Titanium, Illabo, Razor CL Plus, Sheriff CL Plus and Vixen – as well as a dual-purpose wheat, RGT Calabro," Ms Couchman says.
"Two new barley varieties have been added for 2019. They are Banks, which is a longer season potential malting variety, and Bottler which is a mid-maturing feed variety.
"Multiple new canola lines are listed, including the first dual Clearfield and triazane-tolerant hybrid, as well as a new spring type triticale, Wonambi."
Ms Couchman says new pulse varieties in the 2019 summary are PBA Hallmark XT, which is a new herbicide-tolerant, medium-sized red lentil; PBA Marne, the highest yielding faba bean variety for short season areas; and PBA Bendoc, which is the first faba bean variety with tolerance to some imidazolinone herbicides to be released in Australia.
The summary also reminds growers that malting barley varieties Compass and Spartacus CL received malt classification in 2018.
