GRDC has announced a renewed approach to its national Faba Bean Breeding Program that is set to deliver new and improved varieties for Australian faba bean growers.

Faba bean is one of Australia's major cool season food legumes with production extending over a wide eco-geographic range including Victoria, South Australia, northern New South Wales and southern Queensland.

Under a new three-year investment set to begin in 2025, GRDC’s current Faba Bean Breeding Program, run in partnership with the University of Adelaide, will be consolidated to support more efficient faba bean breeding activities.

GRDC manager genetic technologies – pulses Dr Camilla Hill said GRDC would continue to invest to deliver higher yielding, disease resistant faba bean varieties suitable for a range of current production environments and support expansion into new areas.

“GRDC has invested more than $9 million in faba bean breeding activities since 2016, across two breeding program research nodes based in South Australia and New South Wales,” Dr Hill said.

“These investments have focused on traits including heat, frost, herbicide tolerance, and resistance to fungal and viral diseases and have resulted in six new faba bean varieties being commercially released in the past five years, which is an excellent outcome for growers.

“Under this next phase of investment, GRDC aims to ‘future-proof’ faba bean breeding in Australia, with a focus on new technologies and optimised delivery of new varieties, by consolidating efforts into one central program to reduce duplication and improve efficiency.

“We are confident this approach will deliver varieties that are high yielding with improved disease resistance and the ability to meet market requirements in a range of production environments.”

The new Faba Bean Breeding Program will be responsible for developing varieties suitable for Victoria, South Australia, northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, as well as expansion into new production areas. The program will also be required to diversify the range of varieties available for growers and various end-users.

Dr Hill said as part of effective management, GRDC regularly assesses and quantifies how investments are performing and evaluates their return on investment to Australian growers.

“In 2022 and 2023 GRDC commissioned two independent experts to undertake technical reviews of current faba bean breeding investment,” Dr Hill said.

“These reviews aimed to determine the effectiveness of the investment in delivering value to growers and identify opportunities for improvement.

“Accordingly, this renewed direction for faba bean breeding investment has been informed by recommendations from these independent reviews, as well as GRDC’s strategic direction as part of its Research, Development and Extension (RD&E) Plan 2023-28.”

GRDC is currently seeking expressions of interest from suitable breeding partners as co-investors for a collaborative partnership with GRDC and the University of Adelaide for the new Faba Bean Breeding Program.

The current program, set to finish in 2024, has been extended to 2025 to allow for the transition to the new program.

For further information, visit RD&E opportunities on the GRDC website.