A DURUM wheat variety recently released by the NSW Department of Primary Industries, DBA Bindaroi, has delivered superior yields, high quality and very low incidences of disease despite tough seasonal conditions last year.

North West NSW grower, Peter Jackson, in his DBA Bindaroi crop at ‘Koreen’, Gurley, with NSW DPI durum wheat breeder, Dr Gururaj Kadkol.

DBA Bindaroi was released for commercial production in 2017 as a high yielding durum variety for dryland production in NSW and Queensland.

NSW Department of Primary Industries durum breeder, Dr Gururaj Kadkol, said the 2017 season started well, but conditions turned dry by late winter and stayed that way until the northern crops had reached mid-grain fill stage.

“The moisture stress affected yield and raised concerns regarding screenings,” Dr Gururaj said.

“To achieve DR1 grade at the silo, durum grain needs to meet specifications for protein content of 13 per cent or above, over 80 per cent hard vitreous kernels, and screenings below 5 per cent.”

North West NSW growers, Phil, Brad and Peter Jackson, grew a seed crop of DBA Bindaroi at their Gurley property, ‘Koreen’, in a paddock planted to canola in 2016 and were delighted with the results.

“It was one of the best crops we have grown in a tough year,” Phil Jackson said.

“Although there was minimal in-crop rain, the figures speak for themselves, it produced 4.1 tonnes/hectare, 14 per cent grain protein and 2 per cent screenings.

“Also, we didn’t see any crown rot damage. I am very impressed.”

Narrabri grower, Tony Dampney, grew DBA Bindaroi in demonstration strips under irrigation on his property, ‘Mirrabooka’.

The paddock had been planted to sorghum in the previous season.

“The DBA Bindaroi looked good compared with our Caparoi crop, but unfortunately we didn’t get the opportunity to harvest the varieties separately because of stormy conditions during harvest,” he said.

Dr Kadkol said DBA Bindaroi has performed very well in the National Variety Trials (NVT) and yielded 5pc better than Caparoi in a multi-year analysis of the NVT data.

“Performance in our internal DBA trials was similar, showing good grain quality and low screenings together with superior yield relative to Caparoi,” he said.

“DBA Bindaroi is triple rust resistant and is rated “SVS” (susceptible to very susceptible) for crown rot resistance for the 2018 season. It has held “S” (susceptible) rating for 2016 and 2017.

“While these crown rot ratings are an improvement over the older durum varieties, the level of resistance is still lower than bread wheats. Therefore, growers still need to exercise due care in following good rotations and selecting low crown rot inoculum paddocks using the PredictaB tests.”

DBA Bindaroi seed will be available through Seednet.

Source: NSW DPI