HYC Wheat Germplasm x Environment x Management GEM – April sown

• Grain yields in the Victoria GEM (April 28 sown) trial were low with excessive rainfall during October when the crop was flowering and grain filling.
• RGT Cesario was higher yielding than Big Red which in turn was higher yielding than RGT Accroc.
• Grain yields of RGT Accroc, RGT Cesario and Big Red were consistently higher yielding under a 3-spray full fungicide programme irrespective of a canopy management strategy, with RGT Cesario being the highest yielding cultivar.
• There was significant interaction between cultivar and fungicide strategy with RGT Accroc giving a greater response to the 2-spray fungicide (1.5 t/ha) than RGT Cesario (0.90 t/ha) and Big Red (0.61 t/ha) over the single spray fungicide approach at flag leaf.
• The highest yielding canopy management approach was 150kg N/ha with no specific intervention (defoliation, additional N and PGR) and the higher input fungicide strategy.
• Although additional N input (additional 75kg N/ha giving a total of 225kg N/ha clearly benefited from PGR application, the overall yield increase was not sufficiently large to pay for the additional input compared to the standard 150kg N/ha.
• When a higher fungicide programme was employed, it did not change the optimal canopy management approach in terms of economics, with all varieties giving their optimum economics when a higher input fungicide programme was incorporated with the standard 150kg N/ha and no canopy management.

Trial design: Factorial (Variety x Management)

Rotation position: 2021 Faba Beans
Soil type: Grey clay loam
Colwell P (ppm) 0-10cm: 110.0
pH (CaCl2) 0-10cm: 5.0
Organic Carbon (%) 0-10cm: 2.4