Western Australia
March 7, 2007
Source:
GRDC's The Crop Doctor
Nipper (red) and Boomer (green)
have better disease resistance to ascochyta blight and botrytis
grey mould than currently grown lentils.
Nipper is the first red lentil bred and released in Australia
with dual resistance to these diseases.
The lentil breeding program is part of the recently established
national pulse breeding program, Pulse Breeding Australia (PBA),
supported by the Grains
Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).
 One
of PBA’s objectives is to increase lentil production and
profitability for growers by developing superior red and green
lentil varieties through greater productivity, increased
reliability of yield and quality, reduced inputs and new market
access.
Department of Agriculture and Food pulse researcher, Kerry
Regan, said breeding efforts focused on lines with appropriate
phenology, improved disease resistance, harvestability, seed
quality and improved tolerance to soil constraints and
herbicides.
Evaluating germplasm at an early breeding stage in WA helps
identify lentil lines suited to the western region and other
Australian low rainfall environments.
A number of breeding lines, which performed well in 2005 and
2006 in Western Australia, show potential for future commercial
release.
Given last year’s dry conditions, further breeding trials in
2007 are necessary to provide reliable information and validate
the performance of the most advanced breeding lines.
These lines will be in the pipeline for commercialisation over
the next five years.
Nipper is unlikely to perform better than Digger and Cassab in
Western Australia because it’s more suited to longer season
eastern Australian environments.
However, Boomer offers a good alternative for growers if they
would like to produce green lentils. |
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The Crop Doctor is
GRDC Managing Director,
Peter Reading |
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