Of the grain crops, barley is the second largest in Australia.

Australia produces just over 9 million tonnes of barley each year, and most of it is exported to Asia. Overall in this country, it is one of the most widely planted crops, and covers about 4 million hectares of land, from southern Queensland through eastern states to Western Australia.

Australian barley represents 30-40 per cent of the world’s barley trade, and 20 per cent of the feed barley.  In Western Australia alone, barley grain and malt exports were worth over $1 billion annually.

The AWB is among the good sources for site prices and market trends of barley.

Using genetic techniques to determine which genes boost fertility and make the barley plants more receptive to cross-pollination, researchers from the University of Adelaide have identified genes which could lead to higher-yielding crops.

One type was found to be more fertile than the others, and capable of producing up to three times the number of seeds.

The senior author of the report says that the research is an example of how changing one gene can have a positive effect on grain yields.

By using the more fertile, mutated plants to produce more and stronger barley, barriers to cross-pollination can be overcome.

Meanwhile, in the larger commodity for Australia (wheat), Paraguay is the latest country to approve HB4 wheat.  The drought-tolerant GM variety had already been approved for food, feed, and cultivation in Argentina and Brazil, and for food and feed use in Australia, Colombia, New Zealand, Nigeria, and the USA.

Australian researchers are not letting the opportunity go by to have the cereal seeds potentially ready for commercialisation.

This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 14 November 2023.