Hyper Yielding Crops

Date: Thursday 11th August 2022

By MFMG Admin

Project code: FAR2004-0025AX

Project manager: Jennifer Lillecrapp

Project duration: July 2020 to June 2024

About the project

The GRDC’s Hyper Yielding Crops (HYC) initiative, is a four-year investment spanning five states (Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, New South Wales and Western Australia) which aims to push the economically attainable yield boundaries of wheat, barley and canola.

The HYC initiative involves five research centres of excellence, and attached to each of these are five focus farm paddock trials and an innovative grower network charged with taking research and development learnings from small plot to paddock scale. Growers are being invited to join these networks and host paddock-scale trials on their properties to enable a “seeing is believing” participatory approach to the research.

Through this new investment, high yield potential cultivars suited to local environments will be identified and the most appropriate agronomic management tactics – including paddock selection and preparation, canopy management, disease, weed and pest control, and crop nutrition strategies – will be explored to assist grower and adviser decision making.

To underpin the “whole community of interest” concept, a HYC awards program was etablished.

The HYC awards, Focus Farm paddock strips and the innovative grower network involves TechCrop working with the Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI) at Federation University Australia and four farming groups across the country; Southern Farming Systems (SFS) in Tasmania and Victoria, MacKillop Farm Management Group (MFMG) in SA, Riverine Plains Inc in NSW, and Stirling to Coast Farmers in WA.