Sowing the seeds of success
To ensure farmers have easy access to the information around informed plant genetics selections, the New Zealand Plant Breeders Research Association (PBRA) has relaunched its website.
The PBRA represents plant breeders, intellectual property owners and managers of proprietary agricultural seed and endophytes.
General manager Thomas Chin believes farmers must have the best plant genetics available to them through new cultivars that have been rigorously tested to ensure their quality and performance, as well as the tools to make informed cultivar selections.
He says farmers are dealing with climatic extremes, regulatory and market changes as well as increasing costs, so they need to be assured that the investment they make in seed, crop and pasture establishment will be returned in productivity and farm system efficiencies.
Collectively, PBRA members invest over $25 million annually in research and development. As well as improving plant genetics, this investment includes research into endophytes and collaboratively running independently-audited cultivar testing programmes such as the National Forage Variety Trials, which test annual, perennial, Italian and hybrid ryegrasses and Cereal Performance Trials.
Chin says these trials, which are run under stringent testing regimes, are carried out at up to 40 sites across the country annually. Sites stretch from Northland to Southland and include irrigated and dryland, grazed and mechanically harvested sites.
“These sites assess new and improved plant genetics in a range of climates and farm systems.”
He says the outcomes of these trials, which are available on the PBRA’s recently updated website (www.pbra.co.nz), also help inform industry-specific plant indexes such as Dairy NZ Forage Value Index.
Alick Elliott, general manager of marketing and IP for PGG Wrightson Seeds, says the company is a member of the PBRA and invests heavily in developing new cultivars.
He says this is because they believe that genetic gain is critical to address the challenges facing today’s farmers.
Elliot adds that directly and indirectly, the NZ pastoral industry generates around $20 billion dollars for the NZ economy.
He says quality seed and plant genetics are critical to drive sustainable productivity gains and help farmers build resilience against a changing climate while striving to reduce nutrient losses and greenhouse gas emissions.
“Plant breeders can play a significant role in addressing these challenges and helping the economy by helping farmers become more profitable and sustainable.”
Elliott says a lot of farmers need to establish new pasture every year and it is a significant farm cost, so if they’re going to go to the effort and cost of spraying, cultivating and sowing, they want to sow the best varieties for their operation and don’t want the results to be less than optimal for their farm and farm system.
He says farmers can be assured that seeds from PBRA members and sold through New Zealand’s rural retailers are the product of significant investment in research and development. They are quality assured, proven to perform and will help optimise farm system performance.
James White, commercial extension manager for RAGT New Zealand says the company’s involvement in the PBRA is a crucial component of its activities.
“The PBRA allows a collective industry view and voice from its members on important matters related to pastoral agriculture in NZ,” he explains. “This, combined with collaborative trials and protocols, should give farmers confidence in their pasture renewal decision making and management processes.”
He says the trialing and benchmarking component of the PBRA is especially important to RAGT, as it allows not only the opportunity to highlight its genetics, but also the importance of robust research and development.
“This helps drive industry and farmer awareness of the importance of improved technologies, plant genetics and the wider plant breeding process.”
White says with increased pressure on our farming systems from regulations and a changing and challenging climate, it’s important that farmers are optimising their respective systems while still respecting the environment in which they farm.
“NZ’s agricultural advantage is the success of its pasture-based farming practices, and the PBRA helps highlight the benefit of improved plant genetics and technologies so farmers can capitalise on this.”
