Investment

The falling numbers test conducted on wheat assists in identifying its quality for bread-making. Low falling numbers result in down grade of wheat at receival. This is a are a critical issue for all growers in WA with varieties exhibiting different propensities for low falling numbers. Research undertaken by DPIRD researchers has raised not just varietal susceptibility, but also time of sowing and the timing of rainfall as having an impact on falling numbers at harvest. 2021 was the perfect year to collect more data to assist this research in the medium to high rainfall zones of WA. There were multiple days of rain over harvest as well as a wide spread of time of sowing (TOS) dates due to early seeding opportunities across much of the grain growing region.