Plant breeders Australian Grain Technologies have introduced some new crop varieties this season that are set to grow in popularity.
AGT head of variety support, marketing and communications Dan Vater said a highly regarded new wheat variety released this year was the Tomahawk CL Plus.
"It's a Clearfield variety that is based on Scepter and looks and behaves very similar to Scepter," he said.
"Everyone knows how to grow Scepter and Tomahawk is very similar and it offers Clearfield resistance."
Leading into next year there will be many Clearfield crop types used and, in a dry season, the residues could be an issue.
"A lot of people are interested in looking at Clearfield varieties for next season, particularly for residue management," Mr Vater said.
Tomahawk will be the highest yielding Clearfield wheat variety on the market.
"It's actually a little bit higher yielding then Scepter and Scepter's already near the top of the pack for yield," he said.
"The only other difference is Tomahawk is an APW classified variety, while Scepter is an AH variety."
In 2022, AGT also released a barley variety called Titan AX.
"It's the first barley variety to be tolerant to Quizalofop herbicides, which goes under the trade name Aggressor," he said.
"People can spray Aggressor herbicide on their Titan barley and control weeds, like brome grass, barley grass and wild oats.
"It's an alternative to using Clearfield technology and gives farmers more choice to manage weeds."
Titan is a Compass barley variety, which helps it succeed in low to medium rainfall Mallee environments.
"It just so happens that they are environments where brome and barley grass can be a real issue for farmers," Mr Vater said.
"We think it's going to be a good option for farmers in those areas to use."
For farmers interested in using Tomahawk, Mr Vater said it was highly adaptable.
"It's based on Scepter and that's very widely adapted everywhere in SA, WA, right through Vic and into southern NSW," he said.
"We believe Tomahawk will have that same adaptation and just do well everywhere.
"Most of our breeding efforts are around improving the varieties that farmers are already growing.
"We've done that on Tomahawk, as it's an updated version of a Clearfield variety that everyone's growing."
Tomahawk is tipped to remain a popular wheat variety choice for farmers in the future.
"We believe Tomahawk should supersede all of those varieties and it should be a pretty clear decision to switch over," Mr Vater said.
"It's got such a yield advantage over all the other Clearfield varieties that are currently being grown."
The new herbicide tolerance trait Tomahawk possessed had never been achieved before.
"It had never been seen in a barley or wheat variety," Mr Vater said. "It's pretty exciting because we don't often see new technologies like this come into the market."
For farmers using Tomahawk CL Plus and Titan AX, Mr Vater said there should not be any challenges eventuating, apart from disease resistance that should be easily managed.
Seed growers have produced a substantial amount of Tomahawk this season for it to be sold into next year.
"The seed growers reports are they've nearly sold out and there's been a huge run of Tomahawk seed," he said.
"That's been really good, because we only released it at the start of spring and it's got everyone's attention.
"For Titan there's already a lot being grown by farmers this year and we expect that popularity to continue into next season."
The release of Tomahawk has been in the works for eight to nine years.
