Plant breeder services

Agritech can provide a flexible and economic partnership with your crop breeding program, to accelerate the release of new varieties to the Australian market. We have developed sowing and harvesting equipment which is robust and yet sufficiently simple in its operation so as to avoid any risk of error or contamination from planting to harvest. The equipment has significant capacity and is capable of completing all trial requirements within stringent time frames. The range of services we offer include plots and single rows:

Plots

Yield trials can be conducted on a range of sizes. Plot width can range up to 2.2 m, with plot length 1-20 m. The seeding equipment is capable of sowing two plots at a time with a cartridge feed system. It is our intention to use a cartridge system and relatively constant plot size in order to standardize the system for all clients. We can sow into a range of soil types and conditions using a one pass establishment system. This facilitates timeliness of sowing and plant establishment. There are two new machines capable of sowing plots using cartridge equipment.

Single rows

The machinery is capable of sowing 4-6 rows at a time with a manual and automatic trip system. The rows can be on 30-45cm spacing x 1-5m in length. The fertiliser is banded below the seed. The delivery system will be standardized cartridges. An inter row sprayer is available to control weeds between rows if required.

Grain testing

We have recently acquired a NIR analysis machine. The unit has the capability to test a range of crops for protein, moisture and oil. We also offer 1000 grain weight, screenings and hectolitre weight. The grain quality testing is conducted in January/February each year. There is a per sample cost associated with the service.

Summer trials

In addition to winter research, the Narrabri office caters for trial work in summer crops. The dominant crops are cotton, sorghum and sunflowers,and a variety of trials are catered for. We operate two summer disc planters with a 2-row max-emerge vacuum planter/cone seeder as well as a 4-row cone seeder. This gives us excellent capacity for a large amount of breeding plots as wll as alltypes of agronomy trials. We currently conduct trials for cotton, sorghum and sunflower breeding programs throughout northern NSW.

We conduct many cotton trials and our staff have considerable experience in the cotton industry. We also run a large amount of herbicide knockdown trials targeting emerging problems that are affecting the industry such as glyphosate resistant Barnyard Grass and the increased presence of fleabane as a problem weed in Northern fallows.