Yield is the starting point for variety selection. Choosing the top 5-10 varieties that yield in your area reliably is a great place to start. The National Variety Trials (NVT) are a national program of comparative crop variety testing with standardised trial management, data generation, collection and dissemination. In other words a great source of unbiased variety performance information. You can view this information on the NVT online website http://www.nvtonline.com.au/
The 'Winter Crop Variety Sowing Guide' is also a good reference for yield information with tables representing yield data by silo group and maturity.
Some new wheat lines of interest for NSW are Sunprime,Illabo, DS Bennett, DSTull, Vixen, Sheriff CL Plus and the soft wheat Oryx.
Maturity groupings, which are shown in the NSW DPI sowing guide, refer to the sowing times of cereal varieties. Having this information helps ensure you can select a variety that is suited to your preferred sowing time. Longer season varieties for early planting e.g. March/April, main season varieties for May sowing and quicker maturing lines for the late plant in June/July. Planting the right maturity at the right time is crucial for managing frost risk and heat stress.
Illabo and DS Bennett are winter wheats suitable for early plantings whereas Sheriff CL Plus is a mid-late maturing wheat and Vixen early-mid maturing.
There are a number of cereal diseases that a grower must consider when selecting a new cereal variety. These include but are not limited to Crown Rot, Yellow spot, stripe, stem and leaf rust, blights and smuts to name a few.
When selecting a variety growers should consider the possible impacts of the disease and the severity with which it can affect the crop, as well as the relevant control measures available e.g. fungicides to help control the disease. There is a rating scheme based on susceptibility of the variety to a given disease as per below:
Resistance ratings are readily available in the DPI sowing guides and NVT online as well as the variety notes on our website
NB: Disease resistance ratings change from year to year, especially with stripe rust, as new strains of the pathogen develop.
There are various other agronomic traits that should also be considered when selecting a new cereal variety, these include but are not limited to:
Information on the above traits can once again be found in the DPI sowing guide or by following the variety information on our website.