RESEARCHERS are hoping to boost early vigour in wheat to improve the crop's ability to out-compete weeds.
A project at the University of Adelaide, supervised by head of agricultural and animal science Gurjeet Gill, is looking at developing weed-competitive wheat genotypes and testing breeding lines in the field.
"Figures indicate that growers in southern Australia spend about $80 per ha each year on herbicides," Dr Gill said.
"Even with this investment weeds appear to be having a major impact on productivity."
Dr Gill said wheat was now considered a weak link in the rotation when it came to weed management.
"It suffers the highest yield losses from weed competition and the seed bank of weeds such as ryegrass tends to increase substantially during a wheat phase," he said.
This lack of weed competition related to wheat's poor early vigour in the growing season, especially when compared to barley and oats.
"Our project has generated a high vigour wheat populations from crosses developed by CSIRO Plant Industry," Dr Gill said.
"The best lines from this population have consistently shown high early vigour and high weed suppression characteristics similar to barley."
