Intro: This is a GRDC podcast.

[00:00:06] Hilary Sims Welcome to the GRDC's National Variety Trials or NVT new variety podcast series where we give breeding companies the microphone to share their new releases for the 2025 growing season. These new varieties have all been trialled through NVT, a program to help Australian grain growers make informed varietal decisions by providing comparative information on topics like yield performance, disease resistance ratings and grain quality. This podcast focuses on lentil, field pea and lupin. There are separate podcasts in this series for barley, canola, oats, sorghum and wheat. First up is Agriculture Victoria lentil breeder Dr Arun Shunmugam sharing a new lentil variety, Australian Lentil Breeders, ALB Terrier, developed in partnership with Seednet. Here's Arun.

[00:01:08] Arun Shunmugam ALB Terrier is Agriculture Victoria's new small market class IMI tolerant red lentil variety with improved disease resistance traits. The variety has mid flowering and mid maturity traits similar to PBA Hurricane XT, which was one of our varieties. ALB Terrier's most distinct trait is its disease resistance to Ascochyta blight. It's an R for Nipper Virulent and an MR for Hurricane Virulent pathotypes which is the best in its class. This resistance provides a low disease risk for growers in South Australia and Victoria for sure. As per the NVT performance which we got from our meta analysis from the past three to four years, Terrier outperforms PBA Hurricane XT in all lentil growing regions. It scored 3-20% of yield advantage over PBA Hurricane XT, which growers can compare using the NVT long term reporter. Terrier will be open market with an endpoint royalty of around that 5.94 to 6 total mark upon delivery. This is not different from the other varieties that we have released in the past. It's very similar.

[00:02:25] Hilary Sims Agriculture Victoria plot breeder Babu Pandey joins me now to discuss a new field pea variety Australian Pea Breeding APB bondi, developed in partnership with Seednet. Here's Babu.

[00:02:39] Babu Pandey Australian Pea Breeding (APB) has released a new field pea cultivar called APB Bondi, which has mid-season maturity. APB Bondi has been in NVT since 2019. This variety is widely adapted across cereal growing regions in southern Australia. Bondi has a series of traits, apart from its high yield potential and broad adaptation, it has resistance to two fungal diseases, downy mildew and powdery mildew. Resistance to three viruses, seed-borne mosaic virus, bean lethal virus, and bean yellow mosaic virus. It also has tolerance to subsoil constraints. It is moderatily tolerance to salinity and tolerance to boron toxicity. It is a mid flowering and mid maturing variety. Grain is marketable as Kaspa type. Bondi yields up to 5-10 per cent higher than other Kaspa types such as PBA Taylor and PBA Buttler, and up to 15 per cent higher than PBA Wharton. It is going to replace PBA Wharton. It has higher yields than Wharton. Bondi is slightly later than Wharton in flowering and maturity. Bonsi has resistance to downy mildew while Wharton doesn't have this trait. EPR for this variety is $2.70 plus GST per tonne. It has a spherical reddish brown seedcoat colour and has been classified as Kaspa type B. It got its name from Bondi Beach in Sydney. Seed is available from seednet for sowing in 2025.

[00:04:05] Hilary Sims Next up is AGT Western Australia Variety Manager Floyd Sullivan, sharing a new lupin variety entering the market called Rosemont. Here's Floyd.

[00:04:17] Floyd Sullivan AGT have just released an exciting new broad range adaptable variety called Rosemont. It's a major leap forward on past and current WA grown varieties, very well suited to most of Australia, too. So what Rosemont offers is a unique package of exciting traits, along with significantly higher yields then our current varieties and also being known to have better, in fact, nitrogen fixation, say for rotation value and things like that. It's a very important package. Slightly slower maturing than the current Jurien and Mandelup, but it has excellent vigour and broadly adapted to all lupin growing regions of WA, and even extending more to the southern environments where lupins haven't been traditionally grown. Rosemont is about 6-7 per cent higher yielding than Jurien, which everyone knows about. It's tolerant to metribuzin, of course, and importantly, Rosemont has a tall height ranging from 8 to 15cm higher than current Jurien. And also for farmers, it's improved lodging tolerance over Jurian. And also Rosemont has a unique white flower with a little pink blush flower colour, and the seed coats white, so that makes it very adaptable for human consumption. Rosemont is resistance to seed splitting, and CMV, plus resistances to stem Phomopsis. It's an MS for brown spot and Anthracnose resistant.

[00:05:49] Hilary Sims That's a wrap from our lentil, field pea and lupin breeders. And just a reminder that the National Variety Trials or NVT program is completely independent, funded and managed by GRDC to provide growers with reliable information to assist in variety choice. As well as individual plant breeder websites, all the information about the varieties featured in this podcast can be found at nvt.grdc.com.au. I'm Hilary Sims and you've been listening to a GRDC podcast.