Aurora shines in durum trials

The variety was officially released at the 2014 Hart Field Days.

It has proved so popular that the 550 tonnes available for the 2015 season was sold out by the first week of December.

SARDI new variety agronomy's Rob Wheeler was one of the guest presenters at the recent Southern Australia Durum Growers Association pre-seeding forum held at Blyth.

He said there were seven NVT durum trial sites across SA and Vic last year.

"Most of the main durum-producing areas had generally average decile rainfall for the year," he said.

"The exception was the South East, which was very much below average, including the Kaniva (Vic) durum producing area."

While many areas received average rainfall for the year, it was a year of extremes.

"It was very wet leading into seeding, and it was a very warm winter, so crop growth early on was very rapid," Mr Wheeler said.

"From August the rain basically stopped, but fortunately there were very few heat extremes."

All durum trials sown in SA and Vic succeeded under these conditions.

DBA Aurora provided a good-quality package.

"Aurora has very good resistance to all three rusts, good resistance to yellow leaf spot, good resistance to powdery mildew and it is rated moderately susceptible to cereal cyst nematode, so it is on a par with most other durum varieties," he said.

"It also has good early vigour and seems to perform better than other durum varieties."

In the 2014 NVT trials, the mean yield for the Yorke Peninsula sites was 3.61 tonnes a hectare and for the Mid North it was 3.89t/ha.

DBA Aurora recorded 100 per cent of the site mean on YP, and 101pc in the Mid North; Saintly was 101pc on the YP and 107pc in the Mid North; WID802 was 112pc on the YP and 97pc in the MN; Yawa was 109pc on the YP and 99pc in the MN; Tamaroi was 93pc on the YP and 100pc in the MN; Tjilkuri was 101pc on the YP and 98pc in the MN; and Caparoi was 95pc on the YP and 98pc in the MN.

But Mr Wheeler said it was important to not only consider last year's data, but to also consider longer-term results.

In NVT trials from 2010 to 2014, the average site yields were 3.97t/ha on the YP and 4.05t/ha in the MN.

Again, DBA Aurora was a strong performer at 109pc of the site mean for the YP and 107pc for the MN.

Yawa was another strong yield performer in the longer-term at 110pc on the YP and 109pc for MN, compared with Saintly at 109pc for the YP and 104pc for the MN. But grain receival characteristics over the four-year period also needed to be considered.

From 2010 to 2014 across 24 trials, DBA Aurora's screenings averaged 3.2pc, Yawa 6.6pc, Saintly 2.5pc and Caparoi 1.5pc.

The average test weight of DBA Aurora in the same trials was 79.69 kilograms/hectolitre, while Caparoi was the stand-out at 82.47kg/hl.

Looking at the trials where varieties met receival standards for Durum 1 grade, Aurora met the specification for protein 42pc of the time, test weight 96pc and 87pc for screenings.

In contrast, Yawa only met the DR1 standard for protein 29pc of the time, test weight 96pc and screenings 29pc; and Saintly was 33pc for protein, 100pc for test weight and 87pc for screenings.

Mr Wheeler said Caparoi remained the benchmark variety for quality characteristics in durum.

Over the four years, Caparoi made DR1 grade for protein 54pc of the time, was 100pc for test weight and 96pc for screenings.

Another durum forum speaker, SARDI research officer Simon Goss, said SAGIT-funded research had shown that DBA Aurora was just as competitive against weeds as Mace bread wheat.

The trial was conducted at Hart in 2014 and 2013.