The year 2022 has been a significant milestone year for Australian Grain Technologies (AGT) which celebrated 20 years of grain breeding excellence.
Proudly homegrown, AGT has become the largest plant breeding company in Australia, says AGT head of variety support, Dan Vater. It has also been a time to give back.
“With each of our breeding centres based in rural communities, we recognise that we operate with the support of the communities in which we live and work. For this reason, AGT has provided grants to various communities across Australia to help them provide services for the residents within and surrounding Australia’s farming centres.
“While these grants have gone some small way to enriching the lives of Australia’s farming communities, AGT’s core focus remains in providing the best crops available to all Australian grain growers, and so we are always searching for better field crop varieties.”
Mr Vater said the new varieties AGT has released for the 2023 growing season once again show ground breaking innovation and a fitting celebration of 20 years of growth.
Some of the exciting new releases for the 2023 season are described below:
TitanAX – The world’s first CoAxium barley.
Titan AX will be the first barley variety to be released by (AGT) as part of the CoAXium barley production system, providing tolerance to Aggressor (a Group 1, Quizalofop-P-Ethyl) herbicide, offering growers a new tool for control of tough annual grass weeds, including brome grass, barley grass, wild oats, susceptible ryegrass, and ALS (Group 2) resistant weeds.
“The CoAXium system provides more crop rotation freedom due to lack of soil residue, offering an alternative to Clearfield technology. Importantly, Aggressor herbicide applied according to the label will not result in residues in barley grain,” Mr Vater said.
“Titan AX is agronomically similar to popular variety, Compass It’s a plant type that particularly lends itself to low-medium or Mallee style environments where early vigour and longer straw is preferred.”
“Australian Grain Technologies has broken new ground with the release of three new open pollinated (OP) canola varieties, Bandit TT, Renegade TT and Outlaw,” Mr Vater said.
“Bandit TT is a very quick flowering variety that has shown its best adaptation in quick season environments and lower-yield-potential areas. Meanwhile Renegade TT is a quick flowering variety and picks up from Bandit TT in environments that are mid-yield potential and appears to have wider adaptation.
“Finally, Outlaw is a very quick flowering conventional variety with impressive yield. Overall, Outlaw has shown yields 4% higher than AV Garnet, leading the charge in the smaller conventional market segment.
“In celebration of AGT’s 20th anniversary, seed of all three varieties of canola will be given away free to growers of other AGT crops.”
“Patron has tested well off the back of outstanding yield performance in both AGT and NVT trials and is now the yield benchmark for durum growing regions of SA and Victoria,” Mr Vater said.
“Not only does Patron offer elite yields over all established varieties, but it has also recorded high test weights and low screenings in trials, and has an ADR quality classification in the Southern Zone.
“Patron has particularly excelled in medium-high yield potential environments and is an excellent alternative to the commonly grown DBA Aurora.”
Mr Vater said the disease profile of Patron is comparable with most durum varieties currently on the market, with good resistance to most foliar diseases, with provisional data suggesting Patron offers a slight improvement in crown rot resistance over other commonly grown varieties.
Willaura – ‘The high rainfall specialist’.
In recognition of the growing need for slower maturing, milling quality wheat varieties suited to higher rainfall environments of southern Australia, AGT has developed the outstanding new variety, Willaura.
“Willaura is a white grained variety and has an AH quality classification, opening up many more avenues to market compared with the red-grained varieties that get grown extensively in high rainfall areas,” Mr Vater said.
“Willaura is a slow-very slow maturing spring wheat, reaching head emergence over a week later than milling wheats Rockstar and LRPB Trojan, and at a similar time to popular red-grained feed variety LRPB Beaufort.
“Across early season trials, Willaura has recorded improvements in grain yield over Rockstar and LRPB Trojan, and comparable or slightly higher than LRPB Beaufort.
“Willaura enters the market with a provisional rating of MRMS to stripe rust, which is considerably better than other milling grade wheats like Rockstar and LRPB Trojan.”
More information on these varieties, along with proven performers released last year such as Calibre, Minotaur and Cyclops can be found on the AGT website.
