A pair of new red lentil varieties offered by start-up independent plant breeder Grains Innovation Australia (GIA) are set to offer growers a range of herbicide-tolerant options suited across Australia's lentil producing heartland of Victoria and South Australia.
GIA breeder Michael Materne, based in Horsham, said national variety trial (NVT) data showed the varieties stacked up well against industry benchmarks in a range of settings.
Dr Materne said the aim with one of the varieties, GIA Lightning had been to provide growers in lower rainfall, sandy soil environments, such as the Mallee, a solid herbicide-tolerant option that could help them better incorporate a pulse within their broader crop rotation.
GIA Lightning is an imidazolinone (imi) tolerant line that across Victorian and South Australian NVT trials has yielded on average 109 per cent of Hurricane XT, currently one of the most widely grown imi-tolerant varieties in lower rainfall zones.
Dr Materne said the breeding process had been tailored to creating a variety with good yield stability and growth pattern and a plant type suitable for sandier soils.
The variety is scheduled for commercial release this year and has proved popular.
Janine Sounness, commercial manager at PBSeeds, the distributor of the new variety, said all available seed had already been sold to farmers across both South Australia and Victoria.
Another variety the fledgling breeder is excited about is GIA Thunder, which has consistently proved the top yielding imi-tolerant lentil across trials conducted both by GIA and its collaborators and in NVTs in major lentil producing regions.
Recently released NVT data shows GIA Thunder's yield potential on average is 112pc of Hurricane XT across Victoria and South Australian trials over 2020 and 2021.
Along with its herbicide tolerance, Dr Materne said GIA Thunder had some key advantages over other varieties in terms of its frost tolerance, a major issue for lentil producers, especially those planting in low-lying frost prone paddocks.
Ms Sounness was also upbeat about GIA Thunder's prospects.
"GIA Thunder is going to be hugely popular as the imi tolerant types now dominate the market in terms of planted area," Ms Sounness said.
"There has been a significant expansion in lentil plantings in the past decade and imi-tolerant lines have been a big part of that."
She said PBSeeds and GIA were planning to bolster seed availability of the new varieties for 2023 and beyond.
"Large areas of seed crops are being sown this year so there will be plenty of seed available to growers to plant in 2023 of both GIA Thunder and GIA Lightning."
"PBSeeds are also organising seed for some demonstration trial crops and will also be marketing small parcels of these small seed class red lentils to end users after harvest. The seed type of both new varieties is very similar to Hurricane XT which has proven acceptance in the market."
GIA are looking at more than just imi-tolerance in their portfolio, with two other new varieties, which will both be control released on a smaller-scale to allow further evaluation, featuring metribuzin and clopyralid tolerance respectively.
"Having varieties with these tolerances will allow farmers to have a solid herbicide rotation and not rely on the same group of chemicals and the associated potential risk of resistance," Dr Materne said.
These two varieties, GIA Metro and GIA Sire are world first in their types, being the first released varieties with a tolerance to metribuzin and clopyralid respectively.
GIA Metro was developed by GIA using a metribuzin trait from a project funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI).
Dr Materne said the success of the varieties highlighted the importance of Australia's end point royalty (EPR) system for breeders.
"We're a small operation and EPRs allow us to continue to invest in our breeding program and keep coming up with varieties that address grower needs," he said.
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Gregor Heard
Gregor Heard is ACM's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his 15 years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector.
Gregor Heard is ACM's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his 15 years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector.
