Australia
June 29, 2009

Landmark has invested in wheat breeding company HRZ Wheats Pty Ltd, one of the four main Australian wheat breeding companies, with a focus on developing improved wheat varieties for Australia’s high-rainfall zone.

HRZ Wheats’ owners are CSIRO, New Zealand’s Institute for Plant and Food Research (NZPFR), the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), and now Landmark.

Landmark’s National Farm Services Manager Bruce Cairns said HRZ Wheats was an innovative company that had access to some of the best international wheats and was developing varieties to include resistance to important diseases, and novel traits suited to the high-rainfall zone.

“Landmark operates in every cropping region of Australia and we see the growth potential of these higher rainfall regions, so investing in the partnership with HRZ Wheats is an important move for us in meeting the needs of growers,” Mr Cairns said.

“Developed with the combined research expertise of CSIRO and NZPFR, these new HRZ Wheats varieties will provide farmers in the high-rainfall zone with wheats that have improved quality, disease resistance and yields.”

In welcoming Landmark to the company, HRZ Wheats chairman, David Crawford, said that Landmark’s involvement with HRZ Wheats would provide marketing expertise and financial support to ensure HRZ Wheats can deliver benefits to the grains industry and rural Australia well into the future.

“Through research undertaken by CSIRO and NZPFR, HRZ Wheats is developing technologies that will underpin a new generation of high-rainfall zone milling wheats,” Mr Crawford said.

As part of Landmark’s investment, AWB Seeds (a division of Landmark) has secured the rights to commercialise HRZ Wheats’ ongoing pipeline of new varieties.

The first large scale release will be “Preston”, a variety with high and stable yield potential, and triple rust resistance based on durable resistance genes.

AWB Seeds manager Simon Crane said that Preston has performed very well in trials in high rainfall areas of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. “Preston is a mid-late season variety that is expected to be APW quality across the country, with seed to be widely available to growers via AWB SeedNet during 2009,” Mr Crane said.

View a copy of a September 2008 Landmark presentation
(PDF 2.8MB)

Published: June 29, 2009