Weed-beating wheats

CSIRO is breeding highly vigorous wheat varieties that maintain high yields while shading the soil surface to suppress weeds and reduce soil evaporation.

The new wheats also have more vigorous root systems that can starve weeds of nutrients, reach previously unavailable water and nutrients and perform well in hard soils.

The high-vigour breeding program follows a three-year study by CSIRO and the University of Adelaide that evaluated the competitiveness of over 200 wheat lines from Australia and overseas.

The study found that competitiveness in Australian wheat has been largely bred out over the last 100 years as breeders focused on better grain quality and disease resistance.

By measuring a range of traits such as wheat and weed seed yield, rate of leaf area development, and the ability to suppress or tolerate weeds, researchers were able to select the most vigorous lines for further breeding.

Current CSIRO research is aimed at understanding genetic control of early vigour and developing breeding strategies to improve the efficiency of selection.

The high-vigour trait is now being bred into commercial lines.

Research is supported by funding from the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

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