The recent harvest demonstrated how badly affected Western Australian growers were by frost due to the lack of tolerant varieties.

According to GRDC Western Panel Chairman and Hyden grower, Dale Baker, breeding a frost tolerant cultivar is being addressed through breeding programs and research projects.

“Promising development of new frost tolerant Australian malting and feed barley varieties should significantly lower the risk and cost of frost damage, at least in barley.

“Frost tolerant traits have been discovered in a diverse collection of barley lines from other countries, prompting the GRDC to support an aggressive breeding strategy to incorporate frost tolerance into commercial barley varieties,” Mr Baker said.