Intro: This is a GRDC podcast.

[00:00:06] Hilary Sims Hi there, I'm 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 wheat. There are separate podcasts in this series for barley, canola, field pea, lentil, lupin, oats and sorghum. First up is Intergrain's South Australian Territory Manager Rehn Freebairn, based in Adelaide. He's sharing the details for the wheat variety - Dozer CL Plus. Here's Rehn.

[00:01:04] Rehn freebairn Intergrain is excited to release next year, the latest Clearfield wheat Dozer CL Plus. Tested broadly in the NVT program, Dozer CL Plus is best suited to WA and SA growing regions. Dozer CL Plus is a high yielding, quick mid maturing Clearfield wheat. Classified as APW, it is ideal for mid-May onward sowings. Dozer CL Plus is an excellent NU wheat option, featuring good lodging resistance, good grain size and test weight. In NVT trialling, Dozer CL Plus consistently perform well in a Clearfield wheat sector, offering a yield improvement in all environments. As a good alternative to Chief CL Plus, Dozer CL Plus perform between 3 to 15 per cent better across all yield environments in SA WA NVTs. Boasting adequate resistance to powdery mildew, with a rating of S. And a septoria tritici blotch resistance rating of S. Dozer CL Plus has the disease tolerances under proactive management to achieve yields not dissimilar to conventional main season wheats. Dover CL Plus is bred and marketed through Intergrain and seed is available through local resellers and Intergrain seed club members. Dozer CL Plus is protected by plant breeders rights, and is subject to an end point royality of $3.90 a tonne plus GST.

[00:02:17] Hilary Sims Next up is Intergrain wheat breeder Dr Jayfred Godoy sharing information on a new noodle variety, Firefly.  Here's Jayfred.

[00:02:27] Dr Jayfred Godoy The Firefly is the new high yielding noodle wheat variety released by Intergrain in 2023. Firefly was first evaluated in the main season NVT in 2021 as IGW8192. Firefly is a mid slow maturing AMW, which is similar to noodle wheat varieties Zen and Calingiri. This maturity type allows for Firefly to be sown when early planting opportunities arise from late April through to early May. Firefly offers excellent high yield potential, effective disease resistance profile, including strong stripe rust and yellow leaf spot resistance, whilst providing good grain size and hectolitre weight. Firefly is said to replace commonly grown noodle wheat varieties Zen and Calingiri. Growers that have embraced the success of Zen will further benefit from Firefly's significant yield advantage of up to 5 per cent and disease improvements such as powdery mildew over Zen and its exceptional end use quality. During our recent trip to Japan, which is the major market for noodle wheats, we were very pleased that Firefly was well received by the Japanese noodle market. Firefly seed is available for planting from local resellers and Intergrain seed club members.

[00:03:41] Hilary Sims Adrian Carter is the Regional Victoria manager for Intergrain, and he joins me now to share another new release, Genie. He is Adrian.

[00:03:50] Adrian Carter Released in 2023, Genie is a new mid slow maturing AH spring wheat from Intergrain. Suited to a mid to late April sowing, it's an excellent early sow option for the medium to high rainfall areas, particularly in high yield environments. Genie has an increase in yield and is a significant improvement to stipe rust and pre-harvest sprouting when compared to Rockstar. Genie has a long coleoptile length, which is an advantage for sowing into marginal moisture, and when using seed treatments or pre-emergent chemistry that have the potential to impact seedling emergence. Genie has a medium plant height and good standability similar to Rockstar. Genie has a good disease resistance package with MR/MS rating to stripe rust and yellow leaf spot, and an MS rating to stem rust and CCN. Genie has small grain size compared to Rockstar, if it is sown later than its optimum time of sowing, or in the instance of a tight or early finishing season, Genie has the potential to produce a higher level of screenings. Genie has improved test weight over Rockstar. Bred and marketed by Intergrain. Genie seed is available to purchase through local resellers, Intergrain seed club members, and is eligible for farmer to farmer trade for the 2025 season. Genie is protected by plant breeders rights and is subject to an end point royalty of $3.50 per tonne.

[00:05:16] Hilary Sims Integrain's northern Western Australia Territory Manager, Richard Marsland, is up next sharing details for the new variety, Thumper. Here's Richard.

[00:05:26] Richard Marsland Thumper is Intergrain's new main season wheat variety for Western Australia. It's an AH variety, so it can offer a great price premium for growers that achieve the higher protein window. Thumpers varietal head architecture shows that it has a longer head length, and therefore a larger number of spikelets per head compared to other varieties. This is what makes Thumper one of the highest yielding commercial varieties. In a tighter finish to the season, this could potentially lead to a higher number of screenings, which is why it's been recommended for the medium to high rainfall environments where it performs especially well. Thumper is slightly quicker in maturity to other main season wheats, but a few days slower than Vixen and similar in maturity to Devil. So a mid quick variety and ideally suited for mid to late May sowing. This makes it a good variety for later in the seeding window and offers a good opportunity for a better weed knockdown. Thumper also tillers early very well, offering good early vigour and very useful weed competition at the start of the growing season. Thumper offers a robust disease package with good stripe rust resistance of RMR and a yellow spot resistance of MR/MS, which is useful in wheat on wheat rotations. Thumper has good straw strength and therefore very tolerant to lodging even in light years, where you often see other varieties falling over, especially later into harvest. Thumper is available to purchase in grower to grower trade for the 2025 season. Please contact your local Intergrain Territory Manager for seed sources.

[00:06:47] Hilary Sims Intergrain's Territory Manager for northern New South Wales and Queensland, matthew Naumann is up next sharing the new variety, Jumbuck. Here's Matthew

[00:06:57] Matthew Naumann Jumbuck wheat is Intergrain's latest release specifically for the northern growing region. Jumbuck is a mid slow maturing spring wheat, being slightly quicker to head emergence and flowering than Rockstar. Jumbuck was developed by breeders at CIMMYT and was brought to Australia through the Cage program, supported through the GRDC long term investment, and has been trialled extensively through the Intergrain National Breeding Program for the past four years. Jumbuck has really stood out to have the greatest adoption in northern New South Wales and Queensland, where it has delivered exceptional yield potential and yield stability across environments. It has also performed very well throughout Queensland and northern New South Wales in the early season NVT series in 2023. Jumbuck has a medium plant height with good lodging tolerance. Jumbuck recently received an AWW classification for the Northern Region and will likely suit this feed-dominated end use market. Jumbuck has shown to have very good leaf rust resistance being MR, stem rust resistance MRMS and stripe rust resistance being MR. It has an MS rating to yellow leaf spot. Jumbuck seed is available through the intergrain seed club member network and is eligible for farmer to farmer trading. Jumbuck is protected by the plant breeders rights and is subject to an end point royalty of $3.60 per tonne plus the GST.

[00:08:26] Hilary Sims Intergrain's territory manager, Western Australia, Georgia Trainer is up next sharing details of the new variety Mammoth. He's Georgia.

[00:08:33] Georgia Trainer So intergrain's really excited to release Mammoth our new APW wheat this year. It was trialled as IGW6755 and it's been in the NVT for the last couple of years. Why are we so excited about releasing Mammoth is because it offers a really unique slow spring maturity, which is something that we haven't really seen from our wheat program. It's ideal sowing window is when you would typically so winter wheat. So it's late March the earliest into very early April. And that's when we've seen its yield really shine in those really early sowing opportunities. So when you might have had a little bit of summer rainfall or some early rainfall before a canola program, this is where mammoth has a wonderful fit. And disease wise this variety has quite a good all round package. It has really good yellow spot and quite a good rust package as well. It's powdery mildew, it is susceptible provisionally, so we'll have a little bit more information this year. And as for yield, we've seen it preform really really well in the NVT in the early sowing NVTs across WA and across the other states. It's been in the NVT for two years now. So after this season in 2024, we'll have a really nice data package for growers growing into 2025. So we're really excited to release Mammoth. It has the APW grade across WA and South Australia and Victoria, and we're looking forward to seeing it next year in the paddock.

[00:10:05] Hilary Sims Next is AGT Victorian Variety Support Manager Rob Harris, based down in Dunkeld, Victoria. Rob sharing information on the new AGT wheat variety, Avoca.

[00:10:17] Rob Harris So AGT's releasing a new mid to slow maturity wheat variety called a Avoca. Avoca is a slow maturing spring wheat. It's ideally planted around Anzac Day to early May is when we consider it to be its best sowing window. We see Avoca having it's best fit in high rainfall environments, where its longer maturity can take advantage of the extended growing seasons. So environments like the western districts of Victoria, the lower south east of South Australia as well as the wetter regions of northeast Victoria. It does come with milling grade quality. It has a safe grain package, and it also has provisional ratings of MRMS to both stripe rust and to powdery mildew. And if these provisional ratings are maintained through further NVT testing this season, Avoca will offer quite a good disease package for that higher rainfall environment.

[00:11:49] Hilary Sims Variety support officer at AGT, Darcey Boucher-Hill joins me now to speak about two new wheat varieties, Ironbark and Brighton. Here's Darcy.

[00:12:00] Adrian Carter So the first variety that I'll be speaking about today is Ironbark. So ironbark is a mid maturing spring wheat that is being released by Australian Grain Technologies in 2024. Entered into the NVT system in 2023, Ironbark is derived from popular variety Beckom, and has inherited several of the major traits that have made Beckom such a successful variety. These traits include maintaining a similar maturity profile, exhibiting a compact plant canopy, and carrying major acid tolerance gene ALMT5. Across southern New South Wales NVT trials, Ironbark has performed strongly and consistently out yields main season benchmarks Sceptre and Beckom. Ironbark has an AH classification in southern New South Wales and produces grain with good test weight and screenings levels. Provisional ratings provided by the NVT disease rating system established that Ironbark has a strong disease package with very good levels of resistance to leaf and stripe rust. A provisional stripe rust rating of MR has been given to Ironbark, which is another step up in comparison to Beckoms rating of MRMS, and offers growers improved resistance. We believe that Ironbark is well suited to southern New South Wales growers who might have grown Beckom in the past and are looking for an increase in yield performance whilst maintaining a lower risk package. The EPR value for Ironbark is $3.90 plus GST. Ironbark is currently being grown by AGT's network of affiliates and will be available for purchase by growers for use in the 2025 season. The next variety is Brighton, so Brighton is a mid to quick maturing dual purpose winter wheat and was first entered into the NVT system in 2022. Brighton has been released following on the success og AGT's benchmark grain and graze variety, Illabo. The biomass production of Brighton is very similar to Illabo, however it's 2 to 3 days quicker to head. NVT illustrates that Brighton out yields similar maturing benchmark winter varieties such as Illabo and Longsword. Brighton provides growers with improved yellow leaf spot resistance and carries the major acid tolerant stain, ALMT5, both of which are an improvement over Illabo. Derived from popular variety Beckom, Brighton shares a similar plant architecture. Brighton has achieved an APH quality classification in New South Wales, an AH classification in the southern zone. The physical grain package is excellent, providing an improvement over a number of comparatives for test weight achievements, as well as exhibiting low screenings as demonstrated by NVT grain quality data. In 2023, there was nine long season trials located across New South Wales and the Southern Zone. On average, across these trials, Ironbark achieved an average test rate that was 3.7kg per hectolitre higher than Illabo. NVT disease ratings have also demonstrated that Brighton offers a robust disease package with solid stripe rust and yellow leaf spot resistance ratings. The EPR value of Brighton is $4.10 plus GST, and seed can be sourced through AGT's network of affiliates and will be available for sowing in 2025.

[00:14:57] Hilary Sims AGT variety support manager for the Northern Region, Douglas Lush is up next with the new variety, Intrigue. Here's Douglas.

[00:15:08] Douglas Lush In December 2023, AGT progressed sun 1081 A to release. A bold decision, since we had just released Sundancer and Leverage in an already crowded market of early season varieties. By the time the name Intrigue had been approved for use in March, seed stocks had effectively been sold out. Growers and agronomists were attracted by Intrigues performance in the 2023 NVT early and main season trials, particularly throughout northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, where moisture stress and the influence of crown rot was prevalent. Intrigue has been in the northern region early season NVT for two years. Intrigues attributes enabled it to perform exceptionally well in the 2023 season. In northern New South Wales, intrigue yielded 107 per cent of the region mean, while in south west Queensland Intrigue was a standout performer, reaching 118 per cent of the region mean yield. Even though Intrigue has a mid slow spring maturity, it performed very well in the 2023 main season NVT. In south west Queensland, Intrigue's yield was 111 per cent of the region mean, equivalent to the best varieties in that environment. Intrigue has been in NVT disease resistance evaluation for the past two seasons. One of the reasons for delaying a release decision was to get an indication of its crown rot resistance rating, which is done in the second year of NVT evaluation. It is noteworthy that Intrigue is the first variety to be released since 2016, with a rating of moderate susceptibility to crown rot.

[00:16:53] Hilary Sims AGT support manager for South Australia, Brad Koster, joins me now to share the details of the new variety, Shotgun. Here's Brad.

[00:17:01] Brad Koster Shotgun, which was tested as RAC227 in NVT's last season and this season, is a mid maturing wheat variety and is a new release from Australian Grain Technologies this year and will be available to growers for planting in 2025. Shotgun is very agronomic like, widely grown variety Sceptre, being almost identical in immaturity, similar disease package and having excellent physical grain quality as well as an AH quality classification. Shotgun has a wide adaptation and performs exceptionally well across all areas of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and southern New South Wales. On average, Shotgun is the highest yielding variety across these regions in the National Variety Trial. Shotgun can be seen as a clear replacement for Sceptre and has an end point royalty value of $3.90 per tonne. Shotgun is with AGT affiliates this season, and will be available to growers for planting in season 2025.

[00:18:10] Hilary Sims Next up is Longreach Plant Breeders, technical development manager for South Australia and Victoria Colin Edmondson, sharing one of their new varieties, Boa. Here's Colin.

[00:18:22] Colin Edmonson Boa is new wheat variety developed by longreach plant breeders for South Australian, Victorian and southern New South Wales growers. Boa is a quick mid maturity wheat that has AH quality classification in South Australia, Victoria and southern New South Wales. The targeted growing regions are the higher production main season areas and irrigated wheat production areas in these regions. I think Boa is best explained to growers by discussing the breeding as it was selected from a Sceptre by Cobra cross. For this reason, we've given Boa a snake name as it has the bite of Cobra in it with large Cobra heads that he irrigated growers in particular will recognise. Agronomically, Boa has a shorter canopy and an errect growth habit to handle high input systems. Cobra was a landmark irrigated wheat and Boa has a similar canopy trait to cobra. The other side of the cross has added toughness traits like boron tolerance and improved sprouting tolerance over Cobra. Disease ratings show useful MRMS provisional stripe rust resistance and solid MR provisional leaf rust resistance. Boa also has both acid and boron tolerance traits. Seed will be available for planting in 2025 exclusively through Bakers Seed Co Rutherglen, Victoria. For more information, visit the Longreach or Bakers Seed Co website and the NVT yield and disease reporter apps

[00:19:46] Hilary Sims Adrian McNair is Longreach Plant Breeders technical development manager, East. And he joins me now to share the details of Longreach Optimus.

[00:19:55] Adrian McNair First entered into the NVT trial system in 2022 and described by the breeding team that developed Lancer as a faster maturing Lancer. Longreach Optimus is the new wheat for New South Wales and Queensland growers from Pacific Seeds and Longreach plant breeders. Based on the proven track record of Lancer genetics, Optimus provides growers with a new option for a high yielding mid spring wheat variety with a similar plant type, yield stability and grain receivals package that its Lancer parent is known and trusted for. Optimus is a mid spring maturing variety that has been extensively tested across a wide range of sowing times throughout New South Wales and Queensland, but is typically shown its best yield sign in the first half of May. During the high crown rot instance year of 2023. In northern New South Wales, Optimus proved its ability to yield under crown rot pressure across a number of both NVT and Longreach breeding trials. That same year, Longreach deliberately located one of its breeding trials in a paddock near Cropper Creek, where the crown rot risk was exceedingly high. Optimus was shown to be the highest yielding of any breeding line or industry control on the site. Seed will be available for planning in 2025 through the Pacific Seeds seed associate network. For more information, visit the Pacific Seeds website at www.pacificseeds.com.au or the NVT Yield and Disease reporter apps.

[00:21:15] Hilary Sims Matu Peipi is Longreach's product development manager in Western Australia. He joins me now to share information about the variety Longreach Vortex. He is Matu.

[00:21:27] Matu Peipi Vortex is a high yielding mid spring maturing wheat varieties similar to other main season varieties grown throughout Western Australia that hasan APW quality classification. Vortex is the first variety to achieve over eight tonnes per hectare grain yield in WA main season NVT trials, reaching an average of 8.19 tonnes per hectare at the 2022 Goomalling main season NVT. Vortex has a robust disease package suited to WA growing conditions with disease ratings of MRMS for yellow spot, which is great for wheat on wheat rotations, and MRMS for powdery mildew, which seems to be occurring more often than I've seen in the past. Vortex has a solid grain cereals package for reliable delivery at the bin. Vortex will be released to growers in the spring of this year, and seed will be available for planting in the 2025 through the seed associate network, including EDSCO of Kellerberrin, ASG of Moora and Multiseason Esperance. Vortex has an EPR of $3.50 per tonne GST exclusive. For more information, visit the Longreach or Pacific Seeds website and NVT disease reporter apps.

[00:22:51] Hilary Sims That's a wrap from our wheat breeders. And just a reminder that the National Variety Trials, or NT 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 GRDC podcast.