 Australia
February 14, 2007
Source:
GRDC's The Crop Doctor
2007 Western Australia
National Variety Trial sites
Western Australian growers will benefit from better varietal
information from the more than 70 National Variety Trial (NVT)
sites in place across Western Australia (WA) in 2007.
NVT is a national program established by the
Grains Research and Development
Corporation (GRDC) to provide independent evaluation of
variety performance.
The NVT program includes the most advanced lines from all plant
breeding programs in trials across Australia, together with
commercial check varieties.
In WA, the NVT program evaluates potential new barley, canola,
chickpea, field pea, lupin and wheat varieties, using trial
sites across the state’s 320,000 square kilometre cropping zone.
The commercial check varieties included in NVT represent
varieties currently grown in the local region around the trial
site and may also include recently released varieties, such as
Binnu wheat, Tanami canola and Coromup lupin.
According to NVT Manager, Alan Bedggood, the NVT program offers
a great opportunity to profile new varieties coming through the
breeding pipeline and helps independently compare their
performance with currently grown varieties.
Breeding programs nominate the unreleased entries in NVT and a
condition of acceptance into the NVT program is that these new
varieties are expected to be available to growers to purchase on
a commercial scale within two years.
Canola entries are typically one year away from seed sale and
pulses three.
By the time a new variety is commercially available, growers can
therefore look at two, one and three years, respectively, of
independent trial data for these crops.
Most NVT sites will be displayed at field days or paddock walks
through the growing season. Growers should contact their local
adviser for site locations and field days.
The WA NVT trials for wheat and canola are conducted by Agritech
Crop Research (WA), which has become Kalyx Agriculture Pty Ltd.
The WA NVT trials for barley and pulses are conducted by the
Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia, in
partnership with the GRDC.
For full details of NVTs in WA, visit the website
www.nvtonline.com.au
The Crop Doctor is GRDC
Managing Director, Peter Reading.
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