Many readers of the Wimmera Mail-Times would not be aware of the incredibly important role played by a series of cropping trials conducted throughout their region every year.
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The trials - many of which are hosted by local growers on their properties - are part of the Grains Research and Development Corporation's National Variety Trials (NVT).
NVT is an extensive Australia-wide program of comparative crop variety testing which underpins grain growers' decision making around which varieties to sow.
The NVT program is a huge logistical undertaking. In fact, it is the largest independent, co-ordinated field trial network of its kind in the world.
The program currently evaluates 10 crops - wheat, barley, canola, chickpeas, faba beans, field peas, lentils, lupins, oats and sorghum. About 650 trials are conducted each year across 350 locations throughout Australia, and almost 10 per cent of the program's trials are conducted in the Wimmera-Mallee.
NVT accepts lines from plant breeders into the program for testing two years prior to their commercial release. This ensures sufficient data on newly released varieties is available for growers to make informed variety selection decisions.
At the end of each harvest, information from the trials is made available to growers through NVT Online (www.nvtonline.com.au), which is the primary delivery method for the NVT program. Growers can select regions, species and varieties of interest and compare the performance of varieties.
NVT is a flagship GRDC investment, and its aim is to increase grower profitability through the provision of independent, relevant and robust information on the performance and characteristics of grain crop varieties.
After a relatively dry start to the 2019 season, NVT trials in the Wimmera (and in other parts of the Victorian grain belt) are progressing well thanks to welcome rainfall over the past couple of months. These trials are very much reflective of the conditions experienced by growers in their paddocks.
Fully administered by the GRDC, NVT has been in operation for about 14 years now and its value to industry - and growers in particular - only continues to grow.
In my role as NVT manager for the southern region, I regularly travel through the Wimmera and neighbouring regions to keep an eye on the trials and to catch up with trial service providers and local growers.
I am most happy to chat with anyone who would like to know more about NVT - either by phone or in person if I'm in your neck of the woods.