AGT’s Tristan Coram with loaves made from high-fibre flour at the company’s laboratory at Roseworthy. Photo: AGT

AUSTRALIAN Grain Technologies (AGT) has played a leading role in a recent Wheat Quality Australia announcement of two new quality classifications – Australian Innovative Wheat and Australian White Wheat.

It has also successfully gained the first Australian Prime Hard variety classification for the Southern growing zone, which covers Victoria and South Australia.

The moves recognise the volume and diversity of quality grain being produced in Australia and is set to provide growers with greater returns.

AIW represents a class for varieties of wheat which exhibit unique end-use properties not available in the main classes.

A high-amylose (dietary fibre) variety named HAW1, developed by AGT in partnership with ARISTA
Cereal Technologies with grain produced under a closed-loop arrangement, is the first wheat to be
classified as AIW.

AGT head of science and business development Tristan Coram said the new AIW class recognised
specialised and targeted functionality, including nutritionally enhanced varieties.

“Without the new AIW class, high-fibre wheat varieties would fall into the ‘Feed’ class by default.”

“The classification of our first high-fibre variety into AIW paves the way for the expansion of this unique value-added wheat in Australia and internationally, bringing benefit to Australian growers and the entire grains supply chain.”

Whereas AIW allows for innovative developments in unique variety characteristics, AWW is a new milling class that represents excellent value as a general-purpose or blending wheat for a range of uses such as instant noodles.

This should allow the higher-grade wheats, namely ASW, APW, AH, and APH, to be preserved for higher-value export as well as domestic milling markets.

AGT is the first wheat breeder to have achieved classification in AWW wheat with their quick-maturing winter wheat, Longsword.

Senior wheat breeder at AGT’s Wagga Wagga breeding centre, Russell Eastwood, said the creation
of the AWW class promised more flexibility for growers.

“Classification of the variety Longsword as AWW is an opportunity for growers to benefit from its
yield potential and unique maturity, while attracting a price premium above its previous Feed
classification,” Mr Eastwood said.

“AWW may enable us to speed up yield improvements through breeding by reducing the grain quality constraints to a basic set of characteristics of value to the industry.

“The less selection that we need to do for quality, the more we can do for yield, and growers know that yield is the most important driver of profit.”

Mr Eastwood said AGT has played role in removing the APH zone restrictions, traditionally confined to New South Wales and Queensland, with Suntop being the first variety to be granted an APH quality classification in Victoria and SA.

“AGT has been pushing to have an APH class in the Southern zone so that growers in high protein-achieving environments can benefit financially from growing wheat with higher grain-protein
content.

“We finally have a variety that can be delivered into the APH grade in Victoria and SA, with Suntop the first of hopefully many future AGT varieties for southern growers that fit the grade and command a
price premium”.

Source: AGT