ONE OF the highlights of last week’s open day at Grains Innovation Park in Horsham was a tour through a range of heritage crops, designed to provide a demonstration of 50 years of crop breeding.
Famous old wheat lines such as Federation were grown along modern varieties and a host of other classic cultivars that at one time were ubiquitous throughout cropping regions.
Trends in breeding such as the move towards more semi-dwarf varieties could be visually assessed through the different plots.
On the pulse side, tour guide Garry Rosewarne, a field pea breeder based at GIP, showed one of Australia’s most enduring crop varieties – the Dun pea.
Originally bred in 1893, the Dun pea was still going strong as recently as 15 years ago, before new lines such as Kaspa finally took over as preferred field pea lines.
Minyip couple Barbara and Paul Stratmann took the tour and said it was a reminder of the advances made in agronomy and breeding over time.
“It is amazing to think of all the work that has been done here at the Horsham breeding centre and how much it has helped growers,” Ms Stratmann said.
Gregor Heard
Gregor Heard is ACM's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his 15 years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector.
Gregor Heard is ACM's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his 15 years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector.
