Anapurna

Along with breeding improved long season wheat varieties in Australia, our winter wheat breeding programme at Wagga Wagga works to identify international germplasm that may be adapted to Australian wheat growing environments.

Emerging from a variety exchange with European breeding co-operative and AGT shareholder Limagrain, and through collaboration with the Hyper Yielding project run by Field Applied Research (FAR) Australia, we have identified the European variety Anapurna which excels in very long season, high rainfall environments of Australia.

The performance of Anapurna in the Hyper Yielding trials could not be ignored, and we are very proud to offer Anapurna to growers in high rainfall areas, helping to deliver on our commitment to provide quality varieties to all cropping zones of Australia.

Anapurna is an awned, dual purpose winter wheat variety with similar maturity to RGT Accroc and is largely suited to high rainfall environments throughout the mainland of southern Australia and Tasmania.

Anapurna has a long vegetative growth phase similar to RGT Accroc and SQP Revenue, providing a longer safe grazing period compared with mid-winter varieties like EGA Wedgetail and Illabo that reach stem elongation earlier. Its strong vernalisation requirement means Anapurna can be safely planted in early April.

Anapurna also has a useful disease package with good levels of septoria tritici blotch resistance, resulting in high yields being maintained in the absence of foliar fungicide application, despite the growing impact of this disease.

Furthermore, the compact canopy of Anapurna provides good standability with reduced susceptibility to lodging.

While Anapurna offers many potential benefits to high rainfall croppers, growers should be aware that Anapurna is a red grained wheat that can only be delivered into feed markets.