Victorian Crop Sowing Guide
The sowing guide can assist growers in making variety choices for the season ahead.
The Victorian Crop Sowing Guide outlines information on current varieties of the major winter crops grown in Victoria.
The publication aims to prompt growers to ask themselves, ‘Am I growing the best variety for my situation?’
The Victorian Crop Sowing Guide is compiled by Agriculture Victoria, with sources of additional information listed in each chapter. Local advisers are also a key resource for information relevant to individual localities.
Growers are encouraged to use this publication as a guide for discussion with consultants, advisers and marketing agents.
The sowing guide is published every year in spring, to assist growers in making variety choices for the season ahead.
It’s important for growers and advisers to review disease resistance ratings around March each year in the Agriculture Victoria cereal and pulse disease guides to ensure they know the current resistance ratings of varieties.
The latest National Variety Trials (NVT) data is also available early in the year via the NVT website and Long-Term Yield Reporting tool.
The Victorian Crop Sowing Guide is a joint investment between the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and Agriculture Victoria.
Thank you to GRDC and all contributors for making this publication available to Victoria.
National Variety Trials (NVT)
The variety trials presented in this guide are sourced from the NVT program. NVT also provides data from some breeding trials to add to the information available.
In Victoria, NVTs are fully funded by GRDC and in 2019 field trial management was contracted to three service providers across Victoria.
NVTs provide independent information on varieties for growers. The aim of each NVT is to document a ranking of new and widely adopted varieties in terms of grain yield and to provide grain quality information relevant to delivery standards.
NVTs are also used by pathologists to determine disease resistance ratings used in this sowing guide.
Conducted to a set of predetermined protocols, NVTs are sown and managed as close as possible to local best practice such as sowing time, fertiliser application, weed management and pest and disease control, including fungicide application.
NVTs are not designed to grow varieties to their maximum yield potential.
It is acknowledged that an ongoing project of this type would not be possible without the cooperation of farmers prepared to contribute sites, and who often assist with the management of trials on their property.
New varieties for 2020
There are several new wheat varieties being released for 2020 - bread wheats Catapult, LRPB Hellfire, LRPB Nighthawk, and RockStar, along with new durum varieties Bitalli, DBA Spes, and Westcourt.
Leabrook is a new barley variety being released in 2020 as a feed variety, while is it being evaluated for malting and brewing accreditation, with a decision expected in 2020.
Two new oat varieties are to be released in 2020, Bilby is a potential milling variety while Koorbup is a hay variety; with InterGrain making an announcement in spring 2019 for a world’s first IMI-tolerant oat variety estimated to come into production by 2021.
Multiple new canola varieties were released in spring 2019 for sowing in 2020, including the introduction to new TruFlex® canola varieties.
A new red lentil variety, PBA Highland TX will be released for 2020, with the announcement of an IMI-tolerant variety of lentil available to growers in 2021.
PBA Amberley is the first faba bean variety to be released with moderate resistance to chocolate spot, and a new chickpea variety, PBA Royal, will be available for growers in 2020.
Vetch has been included into the Sowing Guide for the first time in 2020 and highlights some commonly grown vetch varieties and their characteristics. Vetch is not currently a part of the NVTs in Victoria.
Download
Download the full guide to your computer or tablet from the GRDC website.
To ensure you receive a copy in the mail in 2020, subscribe to GRDC GroundCover.
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