GRDC Panel Chair Darrin Lee said informative and open discussions on the Spring Panel Tour highlighted issues for potential RD&E investment. Photo: Evan Collis

Feedback from recent conversations held in the field with Western Australian grain growers will help shape Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) research investments.

GRDC Western Region Panel members, board members and staff toured the Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions in September, visiting growers and grower groups from Dale down to Frankland.

GRDC Western Region Panel chair and Mingenew/Dongara grower Darrin Lee, who led the tour, says informative and open discussions with growers highlighted valuable information including gaps for potential further research, development and extension (RD&E) investment.

“In addition to western region GRDC personnel, it was fantastic to have present two GRDC board members, Sharon Starick and Richard Dickmann, – so that they could better understand growers’ constraints and get a deeper knowledge of WA farming systems,” Mr Lee says.

“There were several issues raised on the tour, which GRDC will table at future regional panel meetings. These ranged from how growers can better mitigate frost risk, through to opportunities and markets for oat production and finding a more profitable legume for cropping system rotations in WA.

“The conversations were very much two-way, and the GRDC panel members gained a greater appreciation of the key challenges and constraints growers are dealing with on an everyday basis.”

Mr Lee says growers interested in the future direction of GRDC investment could contribute to the organisation’s strategic planning process for the RD&E Plan 2023-28, with consultation underway until March 2023.

During the panel tour, issues raised included extension strategies for frost research, finding a reliable legume for WA, canola varieties and seed availability, strip and disc systems, oat production and market opportunities, soil amelioration options, root legion nematodes, weed control, impact of stubble on yield results, claying, winter wheats and time of sowing in high rainfall areas.

The tour was also an opportunity to announce and welcome new Western Panel members Craig Brown and Quenten Knight, who joined the panel in September.

The regional panel system helps ensure GRDC investments are in the best interests of growers and deliver impact to each grain-growing region. The panels also help identify and prioritise local, regional and national grains industry issues.

Esperance-based agronomist Quenten Knight has joined the GRDC Western Panel. Photo: Quenten Knight

Mr Lee says that GRDC’s three regional panels (West, South and North) play an important role in sourcing feedback from growers and industry about regional production constraints - as well as opportunities - and bringing that information back to GRDC to help guide investment direction.

“The panels interact closely with GRDC’s grower network, farming systems groups, growers, agronomists, advisers, agribusiness and other industry stakeholders in their respective regions,” Mr Lee says.

New panel member Quenten Knight is a consulting agronomist based in Esperance. A former Muresk graduate (1991), he has broad agronomy experience with particular interest in soils, precision ag and hyper yielding crops.

Mr Knight has worked in regions across the wheatbelt including Morawa, Lake Grace and Esperance. He has had a long involvement with GRDC as an inaugural and long-serving RCSN (now National Grower Network) member for the Esperance Zone.

Mr Knight is currently a steering committee member for Soils West, and a strong advocate for investment in good science and extension with practical profitable outcomes for growers.

Craig Brown of Synergy Consulting joined the GRDC Western Panel in September. Photo: Evan Collis

Panel member Craig Brown is the sole Director of Craig Brown Consulting and a director of Synergy Consulting, the largest independent agronomic consulting group in WA.

Mr Brown’s primary focus is to maintain client profitability with clients located across the central/southern wheatbelt across all rainfall zones. He has worked in herbicide resistance testing services and as a trials coordinator for a large reseller network, before being based in Hyden as a company agronomist.

Mr Brown has been involved with grower groups including the Holt Rock Group and GRDC related projects across nutrition, weed research, frost and overall systems processes. From 2015-2019, he was a member of the National Frost Initiative (NFI) steering committee.

Mr Knight and Mr Brown are joined by new Western Panel member Nicole Jensen, GRDC General Manager of the Genetic Technologies business group.

The Western Panel also includes Darrin Lee (Mingenew/Dongara, Chair), Jules Alvaro (Merredin, Vice-Chair), Juliet McDonald (Eganu), Suzanne Woods (Calingiri), Gary Lang (Wickepin), John Blake (Albany), Richard Williams (Perth) and Dan Mullan (Perth).