Longreach Plant Breeders senior wheat breeder Bertus Jacobs and technical officer Adrian McNair in Hellfire wheat.

PACIFIC Seeds has unleashed LRPB Hellfire wheat, a new high protein APH variety for Queensland and New South Wales growers.

Bred by LongReach Plant Breeders and marketed by Pacific Seeds, LRPB Hellfire debuted last Thursday at a field day at the Tulloona National Variety Trials (NVT) site in north west NSW.

Pacific Seeds territory manager, Rebecca Raymond, in the new wheat.

In addition to cereals, the day focused on oilseeds, pulses, fertiliser, soil moisture and machinery, and was attended by about 150 agronomists, growers and agriculture company representatives.

Pacific Seeds wheat manager Neil Comben said a field day around spring was the perfect time to introduce LRPB Hellfire to the industry.

“LRPB Hellfire is in the NVTs and is being bulked up on farm this year, so growers are keen to see it before it’s made commercially available for the winter 2020 plant,” he said.

“There was a great deal of interest in Hellfire because it can deliver high protein and yield.”

Mr Comben said quality testing during development in both the LongReach program and the NVT system had shown that LRPB Hellfire consistently produced protein levels similar to that of Spitfire, with significantly improved yields.

“This feature makes LRPB Hellfire an important tool for growers looking to take advantage of stack averaging marketing opportunities, such as GrainCorp’s Croptimise program, without sacrificing yield across the cropping program.”

He said LRPB Hellfire has a medium plant height, good standability and a solid disease package suitable for all main season growing areas in Queensland and NSW.

“LRPB Hellfire shows excellent early vigour, solid resistance to stem and stripe rusts, good root lesion nematode (RLN) tolerance, and good yield performance under the added stress of crown rot.

“The large grain, high protein and low screenings make LRPB Hellfire a standout grain package.”

Source: Pacific Seeds