Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC)
The Crop Doctor

High yielding, disease resistant stockfeed varieties have become the top priority of the collaborative Northern Barley Improvement Program, although the development of new malting lines won’t be forgotten. 

David Poulsen, who leads the program from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries Hermitage Research Station at Warwick told recent barley forums in Dalby and Moree the current program was “very different from what it was 10 years ago, even five years ago.

“ Previously the QDPI barley breeding program had malt quality as its prime focus, although we have always made crosses for high yield, and never threw out high yielding lines like Corvette, Kaputar, Gilbert and Mackay for not reaching malting specifications,” Dr Poulsen said.

“ Now we are putting 65 per cent of the genetic effort into developing feed varieties, looking for yield, quality for stock feed purposes, disease resistance and broad adaptation to the northern region, and about 35 per cent to breeding malting varieties for the domestic industry.

“In reality the two go hand in hand, as there is a significant overlap in the grain quality needs of the livestock and malting industries.”

Dr Poulsen said breeding for disease resistance was where the program had changed the most, with new glasshouse and field systems to screen for disease, culling 38,000 seedlings to 1599 last year.

New biotechnology systems let the team filter out poor performing lines before they go too far in the program.

The next few years would will see much improved resistance in northern region barleys, as the program applied minimum  disease resistance standards.

Dr Poulsen said a number of factors had prompted the revised directions of the Northern Barley Improvement Program, including:

• about three quarters of the northern barley crop being used for feed instead of malt;

• the proportion of the northern barley crop going to malt markets as raw material for domestic breweries, with the export trade being dominated by southern and western Australia, 

• falling production on the Darling Downs, prompted by the popularity of cotton and sorghum in higher rainfall areas  as well as the development of nematode resistant wheat varieties,  and

• increased production in north west NSW and south west Queensland.

“The northern barley program looks for strategic direction from a regional advisory committee with members representing all industry sectors, from growers and researchers to the end users of barley products,” Dr Poulsen said. .

“There is also an industry committee established to provide advice on technical aspects of the research program.

“the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, New South Wales Agriculture and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) all support the Northern Barley Improvement Program, which includes coordinated components of breeding – including doubled haploid and molecular marker technologies – field evaluation, pathology, quality assessment and industry development.”

The Crop Doctor, Peter Reading, is the managing director of the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).