Pre sowing comment: good moisture. Small amount of capeweed and lupins.

Early season comment: dry period after emergence. Some lupins present and a small amount of radish.

Mid season comment: dry periods after frost.

Pre harvest comment: severe frosts during grain fill effected earlier maturing lines.

Increasing inputs significantly increased crop emergency for all four varieties, setting up the highest yield potential for the high input treatments, but also increasing the risk of drought stress early in the season.

• The average sowing rate in low rainfall zones is 50 kg/ha.
• Increasing seeding rates is generally not helpful for yield as moisture is limiting in this zone.
• Higher seeding rates can have other benefits such as reducing weed burdens.

• Carnamah was the highest yielding variety and returned the greatest gross margin.
• Two recently released varieties, Blanco and Shenton, don't appear to be well suited to this environment.
• There was no rust seen in this trial. If disease was present some of the newer varieties may have performed better than Carnamah and Wyalkatchem.

• All of the Durum wheats yielded lower than the bread wheats.
• This trial suggests that Durum wheat won't perform as well as bread wheats in the low rainfall areas.
• The other issue with Durum is that it can only be received at the Metro Grain Centre.

• There was no significant yield difference between the hard wheats, however, Carnamah did have a higher yield than both Drysdale and Ashenton.
• Calingiri outperformed Arrino in this particular trial.

Yitpi performed well in this trial and looks the most promising of the newer varieties.

• Carnamah, Wyalkatchem and Yitpi all yielded extremely well.
• Shenton and Land had yields that were significantly lower than the other three varieties.

• Axe yielded significantly lower than Mace and Espada in the demonstration.
• Due to the early maturity of Axe relative to Mace and Espada, Axe did not receive the full iquid nitrogen program before coming to head which may have had an impact on final yield.
• High screenings were the result of cracked grain rather than small grain.
• Interpret results of farmer demonstrations carefully and utilise numerous sources of data to make final decisions regarding varieties.

• Top three hard wheats were EGA Bonnie Rock, Annuello and Wyalkatchem.
• Top noodle wheat: Calingiri.

• There was little difference in the root growth of wheat and canola.
• There was evidence of restricted root development in the 20-40cm soil layer.
• Wheat yield increased with increasing nitrogen but grain size was reduced slightly.
• There was no evidence of declining yield with high nitrogen in this experiment.

• The legume rotations increased wheat yields in the following crop by 1t/ha.
• Ripping gave a higher benefit after the legume rotations than non-legume rotations.
• No significant adverse effect on screenings was detected in the higher yielding treatments.

• Despite the late sowing, wheat yields were reasonable. The hightest yield was for wheat after canola with ripping. With 80kg N/ha, this was 3.1t/ha.
• The benefit of ripping had decreased markedly from the previous season.
• The canola rotation increased wheat yield by about 0.5t/ha. It was greater with ripping.
• The main conclusion from this experiment is that on this soil type, potential yields can be obtained with management tools already available to growers.

• The main difference in yield may have been due to poor tillage in the 500mm spaced crop.
• The entire crop was reliant on the soil nutrition from the pasutre as no fertiliser was applied to the paddock prior to and following seeding.
• Later sowing of the trial may have jeopardised the wide row's yield capacity therefore it would be encouraged that when considering sowing in wide rows early seeding is preferable.
• It may be noted that if nutrition was not a limiting factor for the 500mm crop, the water supply from the wide row may have increased yield to similar or better than that of the 250mm crop.

The wide row treatments were closer to achieveing potential yield according to the French-Schultz equation.

The results, even after relatively good spring rains, support the idea of conserving soil moisture between wide rows and reducing drought effects.

• Yield loss to crown rot varied significantly among wheat and barley varieties ranging from 0.4 to 1.1 t/ha for wheat and 0.5 to 1.8 t/ha for barley.
• An understanding of the crown rot disease history of a paddock and choosing varieties with appropriate disease resistance ranking can improve crop yield substantially.

 

The Carlshausen’s had previously grown Calingiri noodle wheat but abandoned the variety in 2015 due to bad lodging in the 2014 season and consistent 0.1 t/ha lower yields than Mace. In 2015 they wanted to see if the new noodle variety Zen was able to match Mace (the only wheat currently grown on their property) in terms of yield and quality. Mace is a short to mid maturity Australian hard wheat with Wyalkatchem major parent and Stylet minor parent. Zen is a mid to long maturity Australian noodle wheat bred from Calingiri and Wyalkatchem.

Mace and Zen were compared in two locations of the same paddock. The soil type was similar at the two locations, but varied in their elevation.

This demonstration was conducted using farmer equipment. Farm scale demonstrations are a valuable way to explore new varieties, products, or practices, complimenting results which are produced through more scientifically rigorous, small plot trials. Please refer to NVT for a replicated view of the varieties in your area.

There are no significant differences in yields between the control (no Zorro seed treatment) applications and the plots grown with Zorro seed treatment.