The 2025 GRDC Goondiwindi Update drew a crowd of around 300, mostly from northern NSW and southern and Central Qld.

GROWERS and consultants from as far afield as the Liverpool Plains of northern New South Wales and the highlands of Central Queensland are gathered this week for the annual Grains Research and Development Corporation’s Update in Goondiwindi.

The only two-day Grains Research Update held in Queensland, it is covering a range of topics, including the state of play of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority’s review of diquat and paraquat use, and with an international flavour brought by Canadian spraying authority Tom Wolf.

The update, held yesterday and today, also includes the latest on crop nutrition, automation, weed control, and disease management, as well as a session on chickpea breeding and agronomy, well chosen for this week when ABARES announced that Australia’s latest chickpea harvest was its biggest ever.

The event has drawn close to 300 people, including researchers and industry stakeholders from across Australia, to the NSW-Qld border town, and was opened by GRDC chair and South Australian grower Sharon Starick.

“The challenges of R&D are getting more complex,” Mrs Starick said, adding that ag technology could deliver the next revolution, and that GRDC projects were ploughing ahead, regardless of seasons.

“You can’t turn research on and off in response to tough seasons, or variations in yields and prices.”

While the Starick family, like many in SA, had a harvest to forget because of their very dry season, southern Qld and northern NSW growers are in the harvest window for an above-average to bumper sorghum crop that has followed the trend set by the winter-crop harvest.

Unlike growers in other two-day Update catchments spread across GRDC’s three national regions, those attending the Goondiwindi event can grow crops over any season, and Mrs Starick reminded growers that GRDC’s National Grower Network exists to respond to opportunities and challenges that presents.

A case in point is the two-year and $360,000 project which came out of an NGN forum at Goondiwindi which voiced the desire to assess canola profitability in south-west Queensland farming systems.

“They wanted to understand if it would be profitable to include in their rotations.”

Led by the Qld Department of Primary Industries, trials were conducted last year at Yagaburne and Warra, and will continue this year.

“The results  will be shared at updates near year, but please look out in the meantime for invites to field walks.”

Hopes held for ‘quats’ review

Also in the opening session, GRDC manager chemical registration Gordon Cumming stepped through the three potential outcomes of the APVMA review on diquat and paraquat, used as a knockdown herbicide alternative to glyphosate.

The first is affirmation, which would allow industry to keep using the chemicals as it currently does, variation, which would involve changes to uses as permitted via labels and/or additional precautionary statements, and cancellation.

He indicated the law of averages makes cancellation unlikely.

“In the last 25 years, there have been over 100 compounds reviewed by the APVMA.”

He said 15 of those compounds had a grains-related purpose, and three have been cancelled over that time, including the insecticide endosulfan, and a maximum of six have had a label change.

“The rest, including glyphosate, had a clean bill of health.”

In submissions now before the APVMA, Mr Cumming said reviews of diquat and paraquat use in Canada, the US, Europe, and CODEX on an international level, could provide fodder for the Australian industry’s case to retain access to both chemicals.

While industry had a legislated three months to respond to the APVMA’s technical report from its release on 30 July 2024, the APVMA has been able to extend its final determination, initially expected early this year.

“That’s now November or December.”

“They’ve had to push it back because they’ve had to consider everything that’s been brought to light.”

Mr Cumming said the APVMA was now assessing “a big body of work” via submissions, including challenges to their methodologies, and input from leading environmental toxicologist Chris Lee-Steere on the two chemicals’ interaction with birds and mammals.

GRDC manager chemical registration Gordon Cumming, GRDC chair Sharon Starick, and consultant John Rochecouste.

Southern Qld Landscapes sustainable agriculture facilitator Piper Beaton, Mort & Co fertiliser sales manager Craig Foreman, and Canadian visitor Tom Wolf of Agrimetrix Research & Training, Saskatoon.

Sumitomo Chemical Australia’s Brisbane-based regional manager Patrick Press, Syngenta’s Toowoomba-based territory sales manager Matt Kenny, and JB Ag Services agronomist and GRDC northern panel member Belinda Chase, Emerald.

Allied Grain Systems sales representative Jordan Cope, Young, with GRDC communications officer Rhianwen Whitney.

MCA Goondiwindi agronomists Lydia Semmler and Amber Whibley with MCA Chinchilla agronomist Sarah Gant.

RAGT’s Perth-based national broadacre business development manager David Peake and Qld and northern NSW territory manager Matthew Duff.

INCYT technical sales consultant John McKay, Gunnedah, with Tim Brooker, Coleman Ag, Narrabri, and CSIRO Dutton Park-based researcher Dr Paul Melloy.

Elders agronomist Sarah Jago, Jandowae, and Chelsea Gordon, Dalby.

Nutrien Ag Solutions agronomists Matt Rohde, Goondiwindi, and at right, Josh Halling, Dalby, with AgNVet agronomist Leyton Rodrigues, Biloela.

Single Ag representative Shane Kable, Wee Waa, talks weed-mapping drones with Coleman Ag’s Brad Coleman, Rowena.

Agronomists Lachie Bible, McGregor Gourlay Moree, Haydon Frith, DataAg Goondiwindi, Lachie Elworthy, McGregor Gourlay Croppa Creek, and Adrian Burl, Pinnacle Ag, Gunnedah.

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