September 5, 2003

The State's barley producers are set to benefit from a proposal to integrate Western Australian and South Australian barley breeding programs.

Under the options being examined, the Western Australia Department of Agriculture would integrate its barley breeding research and development with those of the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), University of Adelaide and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).

Department Director General Graeme Robertson said the objective was improved future provision of better malting, feed and specific purpose barley varieties. 

"Successful barley breeding programs operate in both WA and SA, however,  future technological, market and business challenges for the barley industry and technology providers mean the merits of merging the programs needs to be considered," Dr Robertson said.

"The potential benefits of closer collaboration include technical enhancement of current breeding programs through better knowledge sharing and access to a wider range of germplasm and variety of scientific expertise. It could also provide access to a broader base of biotechnologies," he said.

"There is also potential to share paths to market, achieve a broader penetration of new varieties, generate greater efficiencies and enable improved funding outlook."

Dr Robertson said the success of the Western Australian program in recently releasing the excellent varieties Baudin and Hamelin, plus the substantial recent gains in barley breeding technology was a strong pointer to the future.  The South Australian program had complementary strengths to those of the Department of Agriculture program.

The core activities of the collaborative breeding program would continue to be innovative breeding, selection and evaluation relating to superior malting barley, feed barley and barley varieties for other applications.

The venture would also play a key supporting role in training of plant breeders, through the University of Adelaide at the undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral levels. 

Dr Robertson said a major strength of the current breeding programs was the high level of industry involvement via the Western Malting Barley Council and the interstate Malting Barley Quality Improvement Program. Consultation with industry indicated there was strong support for the proposal and the consultation would be ongoing.

He said similar collaborative programs were already in place in other grains industries. In all cases, the Department was firmly focused on positioning the breeding programs to enable delivery of better industry outcomes, in both the short and long term.

"The Department of Agriculture is part of the national wheat breeding program Enterprise Grains Australia (EGA) and recently released three new varieties developed through the program. GRDC, NSW Agriculture and Queensland Department of Primary Industries are also EGA partners," Dr Robertson said.

"The Department of Agriculture also partners SARDI and GRDC in oat breeding," he said.

The Department is also currently working with interstate counterpart agencies to respond to a GRDC call for expressions of interest in improved management arrangements for pulse breeding.