Felicity Harris

Charles Sturt University · School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences

Phasic development of wheat is largely determined by the interaction of the VRN1 and PPD1 genes with vernalising temperature and photoperiod. VRN1 and PPD1 are regulatory genes, known to influence freezing tolerance, plant morphology and grain yield as well as phasic development. Forty-seven doubled-haploid lines were characterised for Ppd-B1, Ppd-...

Crop yield must increase to keep pace with growing global demand. Past increases in crop production have rarely been attributable to an individual innovation but have occurred when technologies and practices combine to form improved farming systems. Inevitably this has involved synergy between genotypic and management improvements. We argue that re...

Key findings • There was significant variation in phasic duration and grain yield responses to sowing time for the winter types in 2022. We observed 91 days difference in the start of stem elongation (GS30) in SD1 1 (18 March) and 39 days difference in SD2 (25 April) amongst the winter wheat cultivars. This resulted in 28-and 38 days difference in...

The relative time to maturity of grain crops is an important consideration for producers, yet there are no universally accepted classification schemes for cultivar phenology to guide decisions on variety selection and time of sowing. A first edition of an industry guide for wheat variety maturity was recently developed for use across Australia, rep...

Oat (Avena sativa) is an annual cereal grown for forage, fodder and grain. Seasonal flowering behaviour, or phenology, is a key contributor to the success of oat as a crop. As a species, oat is a vernalization-responsive long-day plant that flowers after winter as days lengthen in spring. Variation in both vernalization and daylength requirements b...

Early generation selection (EGS) aims to accelerate genetic yield gain by applying selection pressure for desirable traits at early generations within breeding programmes. This study was designed to evaluate single plant yield (SPY), harvest index (HI; SPY divided by aboveground biomass) and estimated fruiting efficiency (FEm; kernels per unit chaf...

Trial report - Cereal phenology and yield responses to sowing date, Dirnaseer 2021

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the most widely-grown crop in the Mediterranean semi-arid (150–400 mm) cropping zones of both southern Australia and the inland Pacific Northwest (PNW) of the United States of America (United States). Low precipitation, low winter temperatures and heat and drought conditions during late spring and summer limit wheat...

The GRDC national phenology initiative has been established to better predict flowering time of wheat and barley across the major cropping regions of Australia. A total of 64 wheat and 32 barley genotypes, selected for their diverse phenology, are being genotyped and phenotyped under different controlled conditions to parameterise the model. The sa...

Experiments in controlled conditions have shown possible improvements in nitrogen use efficiency from concentrating ammonia-based fertiliser in bands midway between crop rows. The advantages result from delaying nitrification of fertiliser by suppressing nitrifying microbes. This is best achieved at high concentrations of ammonium resulting in a sl...

Extreme temperature damage to Australian grain crops remains the major production constraint with estimated losses of $1,100M per year. Thus, it is crucial to reduce such losses to improve food security for Australian and international consumers. NSW DPI developed a computer based decision support called SOWMAN to help farmers select the most appro...