South Australia

Territory Manager:
Andrew Etherton

 Welcome to the Spring Regional Update for South Australia.

Things as I travel across South Australia look fantastic, a year with limited insect pressure and good rainfall ( for most areas) sees crops likely to maximize their potential as we head closer to Spring and harvest,

So what do Pacific Seeds have new or in the pipeline?

Canola:

The greatest news is that Pacific Seeds will have available for planting in 2009, our first Clearfield Hybrid variety. Currently named K9209, and shortly to be named commercially this hybrid comes from the same breeding program as Hyola 50 which was the highest yielding variety in last years NVT trials.
 
Maturity of K9209 is  an early–mid hybrid and   I look forward to seeing how this variety performs in harvest trials as the year draws to a close – because it’s what is harvested that really makes the difference.

In addition to K9209, you will also have available for planting for the first time in South Australia, the Clearfield Juncea (Mustard) variety Oasis.

Oasis will complete the product range and give you the grower, a choice of Conventional, Clearfield or Triazine Tolerant canola varieties along with a Juncea (Mustard) variety where good weed control is possible.

Forage Sorghum:

Summer crop continues to grow in popularity across all areas of South Australia. With good weed control options and with new varieties, choices for Forage Sorghum growers are excellent.

Speedfeed 2 is the choice for dry land growers looking for an all round variety where high yields at and economical seed cost are available. Trial data from the last 2 years in South Australia has seen Speedfeed 2 returning higher yields and greater economic benefits than other varieties such as Bettagraze.

Sprint is the latest release from our long and established breeding program. Trialled widely last year, Sprint exhibited rapid early growth and high yields. However the most impressive thing to note from Sprint plants was the ultra fine stems of plants making this variety an ideal choice for both dryland and irrigated growers looking to make a hay crop from their forage sorghum.

Seed Supplies of both Speedfeed 2 and Sprint are excellent for the season ahead.

Corn, Sunflower and Grain Sorghum:
Growers looking to grow these crop types have an excellent choice of varieties across different maturities and herbicide tolerance types.

Sunbird 7 is our leading variety for Birdseed (Grey Striped) type sunflowers whilst Hycorn 424 has shown to be high yielding corn (Maize) in the South East of the state. Pacific MR32 is the quickest maturing grain sorghum variety well suited to our short growing window.

New Publications:

The latest brochure for summer croppingis now available from your local reseller or from myself directly. It contains recent trial data and a run down of the compete range of summer crop types available from Pacific Seeds.

 In closing:

Thank you for visiting the regional roundup and I look forward to hearing how your Pacific Seeds varieties performed this year.

Kindest regards,

Andrew Etherton

Last Updated: 12 August, 2008 April 15, 2008