It has been a very tough year for most Western Australian graingrowers, with drought-induced low yields being all too common across the cropping zone.

The good news, however, is that Australian farmers have proved their durability over the years and will be looking forward to 2003, while firming up on their cropping plans for the new season.

In making these plans they will have to take into account that a number of new and improved crop varieties have been recently released and, depending on particular regional characteristics and varying farming systems, some will need to be considered as sowing options.

The list of improved varieties embraces various plant species and includes new provisional malting barleys, new canolas, including those with better blackleg disease resistance and new bread and durum wheats.

Then there are improved pulses, hay and milling oats and pasture varieties coming off the production line.

But, as impressive as this output may seem, consider what will occur in the not-too-distant future as benefits of further investments in plant breeding flow through to growers.

A good example of this is in barley breeding, the background being that in the early 1990s Australia’s market share in key quality markets was eroded by competitors.

In response, the industry called for national coordination to accelerate the rate at which improved varieties were made available to industry.

One key initiative was to establish the Australian Malting Barley Centre* in Queensland with barley industry and Grains Research & Development Corporation support. Here potential new varieties can be assessed and benchmarked both nationally and, in the future, against barleys from overseas.

Then there are the very large investments in technologies that speed up the delivery of improved varieties to farmers.

These include near-infra red and molecular marker technologies which will enable plant breeders to identify promising lines much earlier in the selection process so reducing the time and expense needed to produce and release superior varieties.

The application of new technology is, of course, not confined to the barley breeding industry - it is widespread in grains R&D and the results of its implementation are coming to a paddock near you.