As part of Wheat Quality Australia’s (WQA) ongoing work to improve the competitiveness of Australia’s wheat industry, 13 newly classified wheat varieties, one feed variety and 12 milling varieties, have been announced in the 2019 WQA Wheat Variety Master List – along with the removal of four old wheat varieties first flagged for removal in 2017.

The 2019 list introduces the varieties:

• Catapult,
• Sunchaser,
• Longreach Hellfire,
• Longreach Nighthawk,
• Longreach Nyala,
• Longreach Oryx,
• Longreach Parakeet,
• Devil,
• Kinsei,
• Sheriff CL Plus,
• Vixen,
• DBA Artemis,
• DBA Spes,
• RGT Relay.

The new releases contain varieties classified in the:

hard classes:

• Australian Prime Hard (APH),
• Australian Hard (AH),
• Australian Premium White (APW),
• Australian Standard White (ASW),

noodle classes:

• Australian Standard Noodle Wheat (ANW),
• Australian Premium White Noodle (APWN),
• Australian Hard Noodle (AHN)

soft class:

• Australian Soft (ASFT)

durum class:

• Australian Premium Durum (ADR),
• Feed

In the western zone, there are a number of upgrades this year, including:

• Illabo,
• Coolah,
• Beckom,
• Suntop,
• Elmore CL Plus (PBR) to AH.

With the decision to segregate APWN, a number of varieties have been upgraded to have the noodle classification added to their existing hard class, including:

• Longreach Havoc to AHN,
• Cutlass to APWN,
• Longreach Trojan to APWN,

Condo has also been upgraded to APW in the western zone.

Upgrades in other zones include:

• Illabo to AH in the northern zone,
• Sunprime to AH in the southern zone,
• EG Titanium to APW in the northern zone,
• Chief CL Plus in to APW in the south-eastern zone.

The range of classes released across all four zones shows the breadth of new varieties being classified and upgraded to meet a range of market needs.

The 2019-20 WQA Wheat Variety Master List represents the continuation of WQA’s work over the past six seasons in reviewing varieties more than 10 years old. As a result of this review process:

• 361 varieties have been reviewed,
• 288 flagged for removal,
• 13 downgraded,
• one upgraded,
• 59 reclassified with no change to classification over this period.

Of particular note this season was the downgrading of two previously popular varieties in Central Queensland. These are Kennedy, which was downgraded to Feed; and Strzelecki which was downgraded to AH.

These changes have been the subject of extensive consultation and communications process to ensure growers had adequate notice to adjust.

“Many of these old varieties represented a tiny percentage of wheat grown in Australia,” WQA chair Dr Don Plowman says.

“The varieties removed are also no longer referenced in any state, industry or GRDC sowing guides, as they have been superseded by new varieties with better agronomic, yield and quality characteristics.

“This is now an ongoing process of updating and refreshing the list to ensure the quality and competitiveness of Australian wheat worldwide.”

The four varieties removed from the WGA Wheat Variety Master List in 2019-20 were first flagged for removal in 2017 and delivered in their existing class up until 2018.

They have now been removed after lengthy consultation with the industry.

Varieties planned for removal in 2020 are:

• SW Flamenco,
• Peake,
• Longreach Dakota,
• Merinda,
• EGA Wills,
• EGA Eaglehawk,
• EGA Jaeger,
• EGA Stampede,
• EGA Bounty,
• Naparoo.

Varieties planned for removal in 2021 are:

• Blade,
• Clearfield JNZ,
• Clearfield STL,
• Pugsley,
• Tammarin Rock,
• Binnu,
• Longreach Bullet,
• Yandanooka,
• Zulu,
• Zebu,
• Frelon,
• Zippy,
• Bumper,
• Endure.

“WQA continues to work closely with all sectors of the Australian wheat industry to ensure the quality attributes for each class of wheat are directly aligned with end use market requirements,” Dr Plowman says.

The WQA Wheat Variety Master List contains the names of all current varieties approved by Australia’s wheat classification process.

The master list records the highest possible grade available for respective varieties. It is updated annually, forms part of each season’s Grain Trade Australia Wheat Standards, is published on the WQA website on 1 September and is distributed to stakeholders.

The WQA 2019-20 Wheat Variety Master List is available from the WQA website. It is also published in the Grain Trade Australia Wheat Standards.