Results from the 2014 National Variety Trials (NVT) in the southern cropping region have been released to assist growers with crop choices for this year.
A total of 360 NVT trials were sown in the southern region in 2014, of which 350 have made it through to harvest.
Some were lost to drought or pest damage.
The trials of 10 broadacre crops - wheat, barley, oats, triticale, canola, chickpeas, faba beans, lentils, field peas and lupins - have been conducted on about 170 properties in South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and southern NSW.
NVT operations manager Neale Sutton said the seasonal conditions for 2014's trials were mixed and challenging across the region.
"In 2014 we saw one of the best starts to the growing season on record, with wet and warm growing conditions through to the end of May," he said.
"However, the weather dried off dramatically through late winter (August) and the crops suffered accordingly.
"Widespread frost damage has also been recorded. Below average yields and poor grain quality are likely to be widespread, especially through the Wimmera and Mallee regions of Victoria.
"The traditionally reliable Wimmera region of Victoria has been very dry, with trials and crops abandoned around Minyip, but low-rainfall areas like Murrayville in the Mallee may harvest average crops. Growers in the southern Mallee have not been so fortunate and many crops will not be harvested at all."
After a trial is harvested, the yield data will be loaded on to the NVT database by the regionally-based trial managers.
Biometricians from the Statistics for the Australian Grains Industry Group (SAGI) will then analyse the trial data, which is of great benefit to croppers, according to SARDI NVT State manager Rob Wheeler.
"The 2014 results are then combined with all the previous results and analysed to give a long term result," he said.
"Those results are far more meaningful and relevant than last year's results alone, which is of interest to growers, but the emphasis should be on the longer term."
Once results are published, growers and agronomic advisers can then access information relating to independent assessments of yield and grain quality, disease ratings, End Point Royalties and trial locations at www.nvtonline.com.au
