INDEPENDENT trials in northern NSW and Queensland have shown the Australian Grain Technologies (AGT) wheat variety, Suntop, is the highest yielding Australian Prime Hard (APH) main season variety ever produced for the region, according to researchers.
AGT chief executive officer Dr Steve Jefferies said Suntop had consistently out-performed all other main season wheat varieties in Grains Research and Development Corporation-funded National Variety Trials (NVT) in northern NSW and Queensland over the past three years.
“Suntop is on average the highest yielding APH main season variety produced for the region to date and has been enthusiastically taken up by growers in its first season,” Dr Jefferies said.
“Alongside the yield benefits, it delivers excellent rust resistance and elite levels of root lesion nematode tolerance, and carries useful levels of crown rot tolerance.
“This autumn about 3000 tonnes of Suntop seed sold out in exceptionally quick time as northern region growers recognised the yield and disease management benefits on offer.”
Dr Jefferies said the NVT results and quick adoption of Suntop put paid to concerns from some quarters that the transition from public to private wheat breeding across Australia would be detrimental for northern growers.
“The terrific results we’ve seen from Suntop and development of the first ever two-gene Clearfield wheat variety suitable for northern growers, Elmore CL Plus, are just some of the strong early evidence of a successful transition from public to private wheat breeding,” he said.
“These advances in breeding are clearly aimed and helping northern NSW and Queensland growers boost their bottom lines.”?
Yield and grain protein results from all 46 main season NVT trials conducted in the northern grains region from Dubbo, NSW to Emerald, Queensland, during 2010 and 2011 applied to current contract prices (APH $270/tonne; AH $260/t; APW $250/t), revealed an average gross return per hectare for each variety over the two year period, Dr Jefferies said.
“From this we can see that in northern NSW Suntop has delivered $30/ha higher returns than the next best variety and $136/ha better returns than the old benchmark variety Sunvale,” he said.
“In Queensland, Suntop has delivered $26/ha better returns than the next best variety and a staggering $155/ha better returns than the old benchmark variety Baxter.”
Dr Jefferies said Clearfield varieties such as Elmore CL Plus allowed growers to use various herbicides without overtly limiting their crop rotation options.
“This is beneficial as crop and herbicide rotations help address the growing burden of herbicide resistance and diseases such as crown rot and root lesion nematodes, which are problematic in the northern cropping region,” he said.
“Elmore Cl Plus carries two genes that confer tolerance to Clearfield Intervix herbicide which is a member of the imidazolinone chemical family with Group B mode of action.
“It offers one-pass post emergent knockdown and residual control of a number of problem weeds including brome grass, barley grass, and fleabane.”?
AGT took over the former Sydney University wheat breeding program at Narrabri, NSW and is also responsible for germplasm from the former Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI) Toowoomba-based program. AGT is currently bulking up seed of a potential new early sowing variety for the north arising from this germplasm.
The company has consolidated its northern resources at the IA Watson Plant Breeding Institute at Narrabri and invested significantly in staff and upgraded breeding infrastructure.
Sydney University has also invested in excess of $7 million in a new state of the art plant breeding and research facility at Narrabri which is utilised by AGT.
“This is one of the best wheat breeding facilities in the world,” Dr Jefferies said.
“Since taking over the Narrabri program in 2005 AGT has re-focused the breeding program with much greater emphasis on grain yield, Prime Hard quality, as well as crown rot and root lesion nematode tolerance.
“We need a concentrated critical mass of skilled people and infrastructure to achieve this and the previous model of many small breeding programs located in a diverse range of centres just doesn’t cut it anymore.”
He said AGT had also invested in fast tracking technologies to reduce the time taken to develop a new variety.
“It once took more than 12 years to develop a new variety but it now takes between eight and 10 years,” he said.
“We expect to see the rate of genetic gain in the north, and therefore productivity, increase rapidly over the next decade.”
