THE inaugural series of National Variety Trials (NVT) Harvest Reports have been launched, with the new resources providing the very latest independent varietal information on yield, quality and disease ratings from the extensive NVT program.
The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) reports are designed to complement, not replace, the GRDC-supported State-based Sowing Guides, which are published prior to harvest.
The five western region reports are for the Albany, Geraldton, Kwinana West, Kwinana East and Esperance port zones.
GRDC NVT senior manager Sean Coffey said the 16 regional Harvest Reports contain the past five years of results (including 2019) for every NVT trial across Australia.
"The information is presented at a local site level to support grower and adviser decision making on variety selection," Mr Coffey said.
"The reports are an exciting new addition to the stable of NVT resources, offering growers and advisers another layer of important information to help them with crop variety choice."
"We hope these publications will be seen as useful decision support tools, underpinning selection of varieties that offer the best fit for individual farming systems and growing environments."
The NVT program evaluates more than 550 near-release or released varieties each year, providing independent, consistent, timely and robust comparative data on yield performance, quality and disease resistance ratings of commercially available grain varieties.
Mr Coffey said NVT represented a huge logistical undertaking.
"We evaluate varieties for the 10 major crop types - wheat, barley, canola, chickpea, faba bean, field pea, lentil, lupin, oat and sorghum - within trials across the country," he said.
"Conducted to a set of predetermined protocols, trials are sown and managed to reflect local best practice, such as sowing time, fertiliser application, weed management, pest and disease control and fungicide application."
Single site results from successful trials in 2019 were finalised earlier this year and this data has been fed into multi-year, multi-environment trial (MET) variety performance analysis.
"These multi-year, rolling datasets for all crops and growing regions provide the most valuable information to support decision making around what to sow each year," Mr Coffey said.
"The new Harvest Reports feature the very latest information from the 2019 harvest that has been built into the rolling datasets."
Planning for the NVT program for 2020 is well underway, with the number of trials across the nation expected to be around 650.
To support growers and advisers, the GRDC has produced instructional videos on how to interpret NVT data (long-term yield results) using the NVT website.
The videos can be viewed via the GRDC's YouTube channel.
The regional Harvest Reports are available via grdc.com.au/resources-and-publications/all-publications/nvt-harvest-reports
