Australia
October 4, 2011

Large scale, in-field testing of crop varieties has been overhauled and reinvigorated with the appointment of National Variety Trials (NVT) Advisory Committees across Australia.
Tom Giles, Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) project manager plant breeding said the new structure was part of a review of NVT that began last year.

Inspecting GRDC NVT trials in Central Queensland recently were James Clark, GRDC northern panel chair, Tom Giles, GRDC project manager plant breeding, John Harvey, GRDC managing director and Douglas Lush, DEEDI.

“NVT Advisory Committees have been established across the agro-ecological zones of Australia to ensure rigour and relevance to the GRDC-funded NVTprogram,” Mr Giles said.
“The committees will provide a formalised advisory and consultative mechanism for stakeholder involvement in NVT operations.”

Mr Giles says GRDC is committed to continuously improving the NVT system.

“Since the middle of 2010, GRDC has been working closely with NVT staff to establish a network of National Advisory Committees,” he said.

“Growers will ultimately be the winners with better run, more relevant and rigorous NVT trials.”

The groups are a mix of backgrounds ranging from GRDC, NVT staff, trial managers, local growers and agronomists.

They will determine distribution of site locations, development and confirmation of local sowing windows, confirmation of canola maturity groups for locations, commercial relevance of varieties in the trials and the identification of local benchmark varieties on which to base management decisions, Mr Giles said.

For further information, visit www.nvtonline.com.au.

Website: http://www.grdc.com.au

Published: October 4, 2011