Some impressive yields were seen across much of the Wimmera and Mallee in 2016, with the wet cold spring pushing many varieties close to their yield potential.
Wheat variety trials were conducted by BCG at three different trial locations in 2016, with one site in the Southern Mallee at Warmur and two in the Wimmera at Nhill and Kalkee.
Thick crops made harvesting plots a long and slow process, but the extraordinary yields made the experience worthwhile.
Wheat yields at the Warmur site, which looked remarkable all year including at the wet and windy Main Field Day in September, ranged from 3.9t/ha up to 5.3t/ha.
Two winter wheat varieties that were included in this trial performed remarkably well considering the conditions, yielding 4.4t/ha and 4.2t/ha.
Unfortunately, the Nhill site experienced some frost damage which hampered varieties at vulnerable stages. This was the case for the lowest yielding variety (Shield), which was only able to achieve 2.5t/ha which was considerably lower than what was achieved in National Variety Trials (NVT) in 2016.
The three best performing varieties at Nhill (Cutlass, Trojan and Yitpi) yielded 5.4t/ha and were all mid and mid to late maturing lines.
The trial at Kalkee tested wheat varieties at two different sowing times. All the varieties in this trial except for two performed better at the first time of sowing (18 May) than they did when sown later (20 June). This result is consistent with research conducted previously.
Conditions in 2016 gave varieties that favour wet cold conditions the opportunity to capitalise and this was evident when comparing each varieties performance to their long term yield average. On the contrary, there were also some varieties that performed worse in 2016 compared to their long term average, indicating that conditions were not suitable for optimum performance.
When considering changing varieties there is much that needs to be considered, with long term performance a better representation of a varieties performance than data from a single year.
Results from BCG’s variety trials will be presented at the Trials Review Day on the 17 February, with results and interpretation found in the 2016 BCG Seasons Research Results compendium.
Members can access the preliminary results here:
https://www.bcg.org.au/bcg-preliminary-results-wheat-varieties-wimmera/
https://www.bcg.org.au/bcg-preliminary-results-wheat-varieties-southern-mallee/
More research can be found here:
https://www.bcg.org.au/wheat-sowing-time-finding-an-adaptable-variety/
https://www.bcg.org.au/wheat-varieties-in-2015/
Or have a listen to Claire Browne’s (BCG) presentation at the 2016 Main Field Day found below.
https://soundcloud.com/bcg-birchip/wheat-varieties-claire-browne-bcg?in=bcg-birchip/sets/bcg-main-field-day-14
