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SA grain growers to benefit from new Crop Variety Sowing Guide
The annual South Australian Crop Variety Sowing Guide will begin arriving in grain growers’ letterboxes in the next week.
Compiled by the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) the publication gives growers access to valuable information from the Grains Research and Development Corporation National Variety Trials to help take the guesswork out of selecting suitable varieties to sow next year.
GRDC funded the research by SARDI and the South Australian Grains Industry Trust, in conjunction with GRDC has supported the guide’s publication and its direct distribution to farmers.
SARDI Senior Scientist, New Variety Agronomy Rob Wheeler said the publication sets out each variety’s performance against key attributes including yield, disease resistance and grain quality.
“When farmers look in their guide, they will find a handy user-friendly format with simple look-up tables capturing results of variety testing from 13,000 plots each year across 78 field sites in South Australia,” Mr Wheeler said.
SARDI runs extensive field tests on behalf of the National Variety Testing program throughout the state to test the performance of up-and-coming varieties under well-established experimental protocols.
“The SA Sowing Guide upholds the rationale behind SARDI’s New Variety program, which is to increase farm productivity in the state by providing unbiased, accredited information to farmers on the performance of upcoming cultivar releases in their areas,” Mr Wheeler said.
The program operates through a team of technical and scientific staff, supported with industry grants, based at the Waite, Struan, Clare, Loxton, Minnipa and Port Lincoln.
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SARDI scientist Rob Wheeler with the new SA Crop Variety Sowing Guides ready for delivery to grain growers. (high resolution image 87.9 KB)
