THE first year of managed environment facilities (MEF) trials at the Merredin Research Station is already delivering valuable information to plant breeders as they map their future research priorities.
More than 50 people representing key cereal breeding stakeholders gathered recently at the MEF trial site for an update on the progress of the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) supported research.
The Merredin MEF trial is manipulating the growing conditions for a number of crop varieties in order to identify traits useful in future plant breeding programs, such as drought and heat tolerance, water use efficiency and establishment success in water-limited conditions.
Department of Agriculture and Food WA research officer Ben Biddulph said some trial plots were grown under natural conditions, others were provided with irrigation, while others were deprived of rainfall using a specially constructed rain-out shelter.
“By identifying which plants are the most efficient performers during tough conditions such as hot and dry seasons, new varieties could be developed which would make more productive use the crop’s available resources in all conditions, resulting in better yields for growers,” Dr Biddulph said.
“This research will be valuable in dry years like this but it will be more valuable in years when there are reasonable yields.
“We want to make sure we can develop varieties that can capture most of the resources available in good years, and in bad years don’t fall over.”
Dr Biddulph said early data had been gathered on establishment rates after crops were sown under “marginal soil moisture conditions”, as well as other key traits such as transpiration efficiency and canopy temperature, but yield data would not begin to flow until harvest begins in about four to five weeks.
Full results from the first year’s trial will be formally reported early in 2011.
The visitors to the field day represented stakeholders including DAFWA, GRDC, the University of WA (UWA), CSIRO, the University of Sydney, Curtin University, Murdoch University, and Industry & Investment (I&I) NSW.
Breeding organisations directly engaged in the MEFs and who attended the workshop include Australian Grain Technologies, Intergrain and the Australian Durum Wheat Improvement Program (ADWIP), Longreach Plant Breeding and HRZ Wheats are also providing material for the trials.
The research groups attending the field day were briefed on the technical procedures and logistics of trialling crops at the MEF and will use this information in planning their pre-breeding research programs for next year.
Dr Biddulph said this year’s drier than normal growing conditions had proved the worth of the Merredin MEF to many stakeholders: it had allowed new varieties and breeding material to be assessed at a time when most rainfed trial sites would not return high enough yields to provide reliable data.
