Fighting frost damage in cereals

Page last updated: Wednesday, 21 September 2022 - 12:45pm

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The department is a key partner in the Grains Research and Development Corporations' (GRDC) National Frost Initiative (NFI) which aims to provide the Australian grains industry with targeted research, development and extension solutions to manage the impact of frost and minimise seasonal profit variability. This five-year, national initiative is tackling frost from several angles and aims to deliver growers a combination of genetic and management solutions to be combined with tools and information to better predict frost events.

The National Frost Initiative addresses:

  • genetics – aiming to rank current wheat and barley varieties for frost susceptibility and identify more frost-tolerant wheat and barley germplasm
  • management – investigating if there are management practices or preventive products that growers could implement to reduce the impact of frost
  • environmental prediction – focusing on predicting the impact of frost events on crop yields and mapping frost events at the farm scale to enable better risk management.

DPIRD research officer Dr Ben Biddulph leads the management program, which comprises the following projects:

Frost research team

Acknowledgments - collaborators and partners

  • GRDC
  • University of Adelaide
  • NSW Department of Primary Industries
  • Murdoch University
  • University of Western Australia
  • Living Farm
  • ConsultAg
  • Facey Group
  • Birchip Cropping Group
  • Foundation for Arable Research
  • Kalyx

Contact information