A NEW crop sowing guide is now available for Western Australian grain growers.
The Crop Sowing Guide, compiled by officers from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), is a one-stop shop for variety information on all the major crops grown in WA.
The Guide aims to provide information to support growers with decisions on the best choice of variety for each of the major crops for the upcoming season. Some management tips for cereals are also provided. The pulse section includes an ‘agronomy and herbicide guide' to support the management of these high-value crops. Variety snapshots (or quick references) are included for wheat, barley and oats.
The new edition introduces 20 new variety releases including six wheat, four feed barley (plus five barley varieties currently under malt evaluation), one lentil and nine canola varieties.
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Not sure whether pulses are for your system? Yields and break-even yields are listed in the pulse section plus a guide on picking a pulse that might be suitable for your property.
DPIRD recommends also consulting an agronomist for more specific information for local areas.
When deciding whether to implement a new variety into your farming system, it's important to determine whether the change will provide an advantage. A new variety should provide:
- an improvement in yield, grain quality and/or disease
- diversity or risk mitigation within your farming system
- suitable characteristics for current market.
The Guide provides variety characteristics, disease ratings, and agronomic information for the major crops.
Grain yield summaries have been provided from the National Variety Trials website and are also supported by other DPIRD trial information. Grain yield comparisons between wheat, barley and oat varieties are provided based on site yield potentials.
DPIRD says it is important for growers and consultants to review disease resistance ratings in autumn 2025 to ensure current resistance ratings of varieties are known. The latest NVT data will also be available early in 2025 via the NVT website and the Long Term Yield Reporting tool.
The complete document or individual crop sections can be downloaded here: https://bit.ly/3OBCnfY
Hardcopies of the 2025 Crop Sowing Guide for Western Australia will be available from DPIRD offices and other agribusiness outlets.