Source: GRDC's The Crop Doctor

Segmenting Australia’s wheatbelt into classification regions enables breeding programs to develop varieties suited to specific agro-ecological zones.

Addressing the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) supported growers’ day at the Australian Cereal Chemistry Conference, Richard Williams of Curtin University said Australia’s dynamic wheat breeding industry was still changing and he proposed further changes to its current classification zones.

Completing his PhD, he is testing whether Australia’s wheatbelt could be divided into zones that reduced environmental variance more than the existing seven classification zones.

His research has been funded by Australian Wheat Board (International) Ltd and all Australian wheat breeding programs contributed data.

Mr Williams said variety breeding had changed due to target regions expanding, a greater diversity of germplasm being used and rationalisation of testing regimes, which could potentially increase quality variability.

He compared the group of current classification zones to divisions of the wheatbelt based on sowing recommendations, agro ecological data, annual rainfall, seasonal climatic profiles, grain filling maximum temperatures and latitude.

A conclusion is that Australia’s wheat variety classification system could benefit from focusing its boundaries on such environmental divisions of the wheatbelt.

He believes that such divisions could offer improved quality consistency, an important feature of being competitive in the international marketplace.

In addition, the best ranked divisions comprised less than seven zones, creating potential efficiencies in the new variety classification process.

Mr Williams believes this would save costs for plant breeding companies and increase benefits for growers.
 
The Crop Doctor is GRDC Managing Director, Peter Reading