Skip to content
menu icon

GRDC Websites

133 results found
  • Trials help faba beans build promise in HRZ
    Pulses, 08 May 2024
    Trials help faba beans build promise in HRZ

    Faba bean trials over several years are looking at integrated disease management and optimal nutrition and canopy growth to provide growers with a reliable and profitable legume option for the high-rainfall zone. Notoriously fickle and labour-intensive, the nitrogen-fixing legume can return vastly different yields season to season, even when inputs are the same.

  • On-farm trials key to growing mungbean production
    Pulses, 19 Apr 2024
    On-farm trials key to growing mungbean production

    The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) has initiated a $3.6 million project aimed at enhancing mungbean cultivation across Queensland and New South Wales. This four-year initiative, led by Censeo Field and Lab in partnership with the Australian Mungbean Association, the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), and CSIRO, seeks to establish over 150 on-farm trials from north Queensland to the NSW border. The project responds to the needs of growers and advisers, focusing on improving the profitability and understanding of mungbean cultivation within local farming systems. Mungbeans have emerged as a profitable summer legume option, driven by their reliability, yield potential, and strong global demand, with prices averaging $1200 a tonne over five years. Despite this potential, many growers lack confidence in the specific agronomic and management practices required for successful cultivation. Through this extensive network of trials, the project aims to build grower expertise and provide practical insights into the crop's performance across diverse environments, thereby boosting both skill development and mungbean production in the region.

  • New boost for legumes in acid soils
    Pulses, 12 Apr 2024
    New boost for legumes in acid soils

    Two new, high-performing, commercial rhizobia inoculants have been commercialised after eight years of collaborative research across Australia’s growing regions, involving 60 replicated trails sites and multiple partner institutions, with support from GRDC. Inoculating pulses with rhizobia – soil bacteria that nodulate legume roots – is widely recommended and considered essential in acidic soils to achieve good nodulation of acid-sensitive legumes.

  • Balancing the bitter-sweetness of lupins to increase their consumption
    Pulses, 08 Apr 2024
    Balancing the bitter-sweetness of lupins to increase their consumption

    Chunsheng Xiao is applying innovative science to understand the molecular basis of the bitter alkaloids in narrow leaf lupin in pursuit of developing ‘bittersweet’ lupins. The aim is to retain the bitter alkaloids in the plant’s vegetative parts as a means of pest defence whilst disrupting the translocation of the alkaloids to the seed.

  • Novel flowering genes to expand lupin production
    Pulses, 03 Apr 2024
    Novel flowering genes to expand lupin production

    Genetic bottlenecks often arise in the domestication of crop species and narrow-leafed lupin is a unique case. Modern varieties are dominated by one flowering gene, which has limited its role in cropping systems. A dedicated team is building on their train of discovery for lupins to mine genetic resources for more flowering variability to ultimately deliver better adapted narrow-leafed lupins for Australian growers.

  • Project to optimise nutrition for WA pulse crops
    Pulses, 18 Mar 2024
    Project to optimise nutrition for WA pulse crops

    Western Australian grain growers are set to benefit from new fertiliser guidelines aimed at optimizing the growth of newly adapted pulse crops, including chickpeas, field peas, lentils, faba beans, vetch, and lupins. This three-year research project, a collaboration between the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and Living Farm, seeks to enhance growers' profitability by providing tailored nutrition recommendations for phosphorus, potassium, and sulphur. Living Farm's agronomy and operations manager, Kathryn Fleay, emphasized that the project would generate crucial updated information on the nutrient requirements of a variety of grain legumes, aiding growers and advisors in making informed decisions. Through a combination of glasshouse experiments, field trials, and paddock-scale trials utilizing new technologies, the project aims to develop and validate fertiliser response curves specific to Western Australia's agricultural conditions.

  • Lupins to be fortified for disease resistance
    Pulses, 18 Mar 2024
    Lupins to be fortified for disease resistance

    Renewed vigour is being applied to narrow-leafed lupin development with a major cross institutional project upping the ante for disease resistance. Four high priority diseases will be the focus of the investment with the aim of investigating new means of increasing the speed and accuracy of screening, identifying new genes and developing new molecular genetic tools for breeders.

  • New broadacre summer pulse crop for Queensland and northern NSW
    Pulses, 14 Feb 2024
    New broadacre summer pulse crop for Queensland and northern NSW

    The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), in collaboration with the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) and the Woods Group, is spearheading projects to promote pigeonpea as a promising broadacre summer pulse crop in Queensland and northern NSW. Building on prior research that highlighted pigeonpea's potential beyond a trap crop for cotton, these initiatives aim to transform pigeonpea into a key summer pulse for the region. Rebecca Raymond, GRDC's grower relations manager for the north, emphasized the need for a resilient summer pulse crop suited to the arid and warm areas of southwest Queensland and northwest New South Wales.

  • New push to sweeten soybean plantings
    Pulses, 31 Jan 2024
    New push to sweeten soybean plantings

    From a project instigated by a mayor in Queensland’s tropics to a new industry development officer further south, there is a push to reinvigorate the soybean industry in the northern region.

  • HALO project shines light on Broomehill nitrogen needs
    Pulses, 30 Jan 2024
    HALO project shines light on Broomehill nitrogen needs

    New pasture legume options for grain growers are being trialled in regions of need through HALO – the Harvestable Annual Legume Options project – under the mantle of WA Agricultural Research Collaboration. Growers in the Broomehill region are one of the first to benefit from sites evaluating newly developed species with improved adaptation.

back to top