Area sown of wheat varieties in Western Australia between 2012-2017

Page last updated: Thursday, 21 January 2021 - 11:58am

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Which wheat variety was the most popular in terms of area sown last year?

Unsurprisingly, the most popular wheat variety was Mace, an Australian hard (AH) variety bred by AGT and released in 2008. However, the popularity of this variety has shown a decrease in area sown since the release of Scepter (AGT AH variety) in the Spring of 2015. In 2016, Mace occupied 66.7% of the area sown to wheat and in 2017, it fell to 54.47% of the total area sown.

Other popular varieties included Calingiri, Zen, Magenta, Yitpi, Corack, Trojan and Cobra.

See below for more information on these varieties.

Estimated area sown to the top seven wheat varieties grown in 2017 in Western Australia

A graph displaying the trend of the area sown to wheat varieties in Western Australia

Estimated area sown (% of state plantings) of top 10 wheat varieties in WA between 2012-2017. Source: CBH Group. Note: 'Other varieties' include the sum of all other varieties that had 0.06% of the area sown to wheat in 2017.

New varieties for 2017

DS Pascal

DS Pascal is an Australian Premium White (APW) variety which was released by Dow AgroSciences in 2017.

Outstanding ability to maintain falling numbers after pre-harvest rain. Best performing variey in DPIRD's falling number index testing. Therefore suitable for areas that may recieve rainfall during the harvest period.
Mid-long variety.
Susceptible to crown rot.

LRPB Havoc

LRPB Havoc is an Australian Hard (AH) that was released by LongReach Plant Breeders in 2017.

Earlier maturing variety with yields similar to or slightly higher than Mace.
Good resistance to stripe and leaf rust.

See the next page for tables which further explain the trends of adoption for the top 30 wheat varieties grown in WA between 2012 and 2017.

The top 30 wheat varieties sown in WA in 2017

The tables below display the top 1-10 (Table 1) and then the top 11-30 (Table 2) wheat varieties by percentage of area sown, grown in Western Australia in 2017. The tables track the areas sown to these varieties from 2012 to 2017. The Most obvious change from 2016 to 2017 in the top 10 table is the increase in area sown to Scepter and subsequent decrease the area sown to Mace. Another change to note is the increase in area sown to the newer noodle variety Zen and the decrease in area sown to older noodle variety Calingiri.

Table 1 Top 10 wheat varieties grown in WA in 2017 (displayed as a percentage). Source: CBH Group. Note: The 'other varieties' category listed in this table is the sum of the percentage of area sown of the varieties listed in Table 2.
Variety	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Mace	41.39	53.38	59.10	66.68	66.52	54.47
Scepter	-	-	-	-	0.07	14.55
Calingiri	8.61	9.48	10.78	8.07	8.17	7.30
Zen	-	-	-	0.02	1.31	4.30
Magenta	6.55	4.70	3.79	3.51	4.07	4.04
Yitpi	6.95	6.34	4.87	3.44	3.02	2.55
Corack	0.06	1.60	3.17	3.96	2.40	1.82
Trojan	-	-	-	0.08	0.90	1.77
Cobra	0.16	1.69	2.20	1.76	1.90	1.75
Other varieties	32.07	20.35	14.86	11.61	11.07	7.03

Table 2 Other varieties - the sum of the other varieties delivered to the CBH Group recieval sites in the 2017/2018 harvest. Source: CBH Group. Note: This list includes the rest of the wheat varieties which made up the top 30 wheat varieties by area sown in WA.
Variety	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Wyalkatchem	14.53	7.73	4.98	3.33	2.86	1.19
Bremer	-	-	-	0.03	0.62	0.65
Harper	-	-	0.06	0.58	0.76	0.53
Carnamah	1.86	1.27	0.77	0.58	0.57	0.42
Emu Rock	0.02	0.33	0.45	0.60	0.59	0.39
Impress CL Plus	-	-	-	0.02	0.48	0.38
Stiletto	2.88	2.24	1.73	0.99	0.67	0.38
EGA Bonnie Rock	2.58	1.56	0.94	0.87	0.68	0.37
Arrino	1.39	0.84	0.64	0.43	0.49	0.35
Westonia	2.59	1.45	0.88	0.81	0.51	0.28
Cutlass	-	-	-	-	0.00	0.22
Grenade CL Plus	-	-	0.03	0.22	0.20	0.22
Hydra	-	-	-	0.00	0.10	0.18
Spear	0.71	0.53	0.60	0.43	0.31	0.16
Ninja	-	-	-	-	-	0.15
Machete	0.15	0.20	0.34	0.20	0.27	0.14
Justica CL Plus	0.53	0.96	1.13	1.01	0.78	0.13
Clearfield STL	0.89	0.41	0.29	0.16	0.11	0.12
Supreme	-	-	-	0.01	0.10	0.11
King Rock	0.39	0.23	0.20	0.16	0.17	0.11