Introduction
The market demand for noodles has not been matched with a price premium in recent years and growers have focused on production of Mace wheat, and Australian Hard. Zen and Supreme are new noodle wheats which were released recently. While they have improved grain quality and yield compared to Calingiri, their performance and resulting economic return will need to match Mace wheat.
Aim
A large scale demontration was undertaken in 2015 at Perejori to compare the performance of the noodle wheats with Mace wheat.
| Sowing date | 25 May 2015 |
|---|---|
| Soil moisture at seeding | Top 10cm: dry Below 10cm: damp |
| Fertiliser | DAPZS 50kg/ha at seeding Urea 40kg/ha end of July |
| Herbicides | Treflan 1.8L/ha + Diruon 250g/ha at seeding Jaguar 700mL/ha + LVE ester 400mL/ha + Logran 10 g/ha on 30 June |
| Insecticides | Aphacyphmethrin 100mL/ha at seeding |
| Rainfall | GSR (April - Oct): 215.8mm (summer rainfall: 23.6mm) |
Results
Emergence after seeding was very patchy (Figure 1 at top of page). The crop was sown in late May with a dry top soil but damp subsoil. It is estimated that 10-20% of the crop emerged at seeding with the crop fully emerged by late June. Supreme wheat was flowering (Zd67) on 11 September 2015. Ears were emerging for Mace (Zd57) and Calingiri and Zen (Zd51) wheats.
| Plot | Variety | Yield (t/ha) | Hectolitre (g/HLWT) | Screenings (%) | Protein (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zen | 0.93 | 75 | 10.3 | 11.9 |
| 2 | Mace | 1.13 | 76 | 11.2 | 12.6 |
| 3 | Supreme | 1.12 | 77 | 8.3 | 11.9 |
| 4 | Mace | 1.19 | 75 | 10.4 | 12.2 |
| 5 | Calingiri | 0.99 | 74 | 6.4 | 13.1 |
| 6 | Mace | 1.31 | 76 | 8.2 | 11.5 |
| 7 | Zen | 0.88 | 74 | 11.5 | 12.5 |
| 8 | Mace | 1.33 | 77 | 10.1 | 12.5 |
| 9 | Calingiri | 1.04 | 73 | 7.8 | 13.4 |
| 10 | Mace | 1.24 | 72 | 15.3 | 13.5 |
| 11 | Supreme | 1.20 | 75 | 12.5 | 12.8 |
There was a lack of September rain for grain fill and crop yield suffered (Table 2). Screenings were greater than 5% for all varieties and hectoliter weights were less than 76kg/hl for Zen and Calingiri. Mace and Supreme wheat yielded were the top ranked varieties at the site. Calingiri and Zen yields were 200-300kg/ha lower than Mace and Supreme.
Comments
The industry has access to noodle wheats with mid-long maturing wheats (Zen and Calingiri) and short-mid maturing wheats (Supreme and Arrino) suitable for early or later sowing times. When choosing longer maturing wheats, agronomy research funded by Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) and Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) has shown the importance of early sowing in May. This outcome was demonstrated in the wheat variety demonstration at Perenjori. There were sowing opportunities in 2015 in early May however due to logistic (availability of seed and machinery) the demonstration was sown in the fourth week of May. There was marginal soil moisture at seeding and full emergence of the wheat varieties was delayed until late June. The longer maturing wheat varieties Zen and Calingiri were lower yielding than Supreme and Mace which are short to mid maturing varieties.
With delayed emergence until late June, spring rains are important for grain fill and subsequent grain quality. This did not occur at the demonstration site in 2015, and screenings ranged from 6-15% for all varieties. In general, the hectolitre weights of Zen and Calingiri were lower than the industry standard of 76kg/hl.
Acknowledgements
This trial was funded by GRDC as part of project DAW00249 Tactical wheat agronomy for the west. Appreciation to the Bryant Family in Perenjori/Latham for implementing, managing and harvesting the demonstration. Technical support was provided by Bruce Haig at DAFWA.