July 16, 2003

A new breeding alliance that links NSW Agriculture, the Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC) and the Seedmark consortium is another step in the coordinated campaign to expand the area under lucerne in Australia's northern grains region.

Key steps in the campaign will be the breeding and release of new lucerne varieties ­ for short term crop rotations, with enhanced grazing tolerance or value adding characteristics ­ to make lucerne "easy to establish, easy to manage and easy to remove".

Researchers working on the project will use field days, farm walks, seminars and an ongoing program of media releases, newsletters and other promotional material to encourage graingrowers to plant more lucerne.

NSW Agriculture is the principal agency involved, with the project being led by lucerne breeder Rex Williams from the Tamworth Agriculture Institute (the former Tamworth Centre for Crop Improvement).

The GRDC, which will invest $1.15 million in the Lucerne Alliance project over five years, has supported the NSW Agriculture lucerne breeding program for nine years and funded new greenhouse infrastructure and other purpose built facilities at Tamworth.

Seedmark will commercialise the elite lucerne lines bred by the alliance.

Queensland¹s Department of Primary Industries is collaborating with the alliance to evaluate and screen breeding lines in the field and the CRC for Tropical Plant Protection is carrying out pathology studies and developing molecular markers in a collaborative, GRDC supported project.

Dr Williams says a number of factors will lead to lucerne being grown much more widely across the northern region than it is now, including concern about rising water tables and widening acceptance of the need for ley and phase legumes in grain farm rotations.

His project team intends to speed the process by developing new, high-yielding lucerne varieties adapted to the diverse and often difficult environment of the northern region¹s lower rainfall areas. These varieties will also be persistent, able to recover quickly after grazing, resistant to pests and diseases and have strong nitrogen fixing ability.

"Some 70 per cent of the lucerne grown in Australia at the moment is in NSW, and we believe there are also big opportunities to increase lucerne use in southern Queensland," Dr Williams said.

"We are looking at lines with different traits that will appeal to growers, such as adaptation to short rotations and grazing tolerance.

"Traditionally growers have planted lucerne aiming for the stand to last five or six years, but there is evidence that a stand life of two or three years can deliver the soil improvement and nitrogen fixation benefits needed for several wheat crops.

"Such short term rotations probably won¹t be grazed, but lucernes for longer term rotations in large cropping paddocks must be bred to tolerate extended periods of grazing.

"This is a challenge for a plant that traditionally likes short grazing periods and long rests."

Dr Williams said the drought had seriously delayed both the sowing of new field trials and the recovery of elite, grazing-tolerant genotypes from the diverse range of field trials established in earlier research. However the drought was helping to identify plants that had the genes to survive extremely tough conditions.

While the drought had not broken, enough rain had fallen to allow lucerne breeding trials to be planted this season.