Western Australian grain growers are showing support for new locally-bred crop varieties according to the latest 2004 Crop Variety Sowing Guide.

The top six most widely grown wheat varieties and the leading barley varieties in the State are all Western Australian varieties bred by the Western Australia Department of Agriculture.

Department Cropping Systems Research Manager David Bowran said the latest Crop Variety Sowing Guide was now available for growers to help make the best choice of varieties for each of the major crops.

It covered wheat, triticale, barley, oats, canola, lupins, field peas, chickpeas, lentils faba beans, common vetch and lathyrus.

Dr Bowran said Carnamah, Caliningiri and Westonia made up 60 per cent of the area sown to wheat, and Stirling and Gairdner accounted for about 77 per cent of barley varieties sown.

He said Baudin, released to growers in 2002, had already made a promising start and had been sown to 1.16 per cent of the total barley area in 2003.

Baudin and Hamelin had recently been given malting classifications and were expected to be well received by growers.

Dr Bowran said the Sowing Guide was based on the Department’s crop variety trials over a 10 year period at its research stations and on private farming properties throughout the agricultural region.

The results for new varieties were based on at least three years data.

“As well as varietal characteristics and performance, the Sowing Guide contains information on herbicide resistance, disease, agronomic factors, deliveries and marketing,” he said.

“The new edition sports the latest statistics and research on all crop varieties, including updated information on Baudin and Hamelin barleys, the new Western Australian wheats EGA Castle Rock, EGA Blanco and EGA Jitarning, as well as details of the performance of Grains Biotech Australia’s new varieties and interstate varieties.” 

All promising lines from the Department’s breeding programs and other States (applicable to WA) are tested in the crop variety testing program.

Dr Bowran said new information this year included an update on a number of new canola varieties and a herbicide tolerance guide for Baudin and Hamelin based on trials with 30 different herbicides.

He said the Sowing Guide also addressed the impact of stripe rust, which occurred in WA for the first time in 2002, leaf rust and stem rust.

“Of the suggested varieties EGA Castle Rock has the best resistance to all three rusts while Wyalkatchem has resistance to leaf and stem rusts and partial resistance to stem rust.  Wyalkatchem is the best combination of high yield with rust resistance,” he said.

The Crop Variety Sowing Guide 2004 is available free of charge on the Department of Agriculture’s website at www.agric.wa.gov.au or it can be purchased as a CDROM for $15 or in hard copy for $25.