Dr Felicity Harris1, Dr Nectarios Costadopolous1, Dr Kenton Porker2, Dr Pengcheng Hu3, Prof. James Hunt4, Dr Corinne Celestina4, Prof. Victor Sadras5,6,7, Mr Rick Graham8, Mr Blakely Paynter9, Dr Hammad Khan9,10, Mrs Kelly Angel11, Professor Matthew Tucker6, Dr Julian Taylor6, Dr Max Moldovan6, Dr Bangyou Zheng12, Dr Julianne Lilley3
1Charles Sturt University, 2CSIRO, 3CSIRO, 4University of Melbourne, 5SARDI, 6University of Adelaide, 7Flinders University, 8NSW DPI, 9DPIRD, 10Murdoch University, 11Birchip Cropping Group, 12CSIRO
Biography:
Felicity Harris is a Senior Lecturer in Crop Science at Charles Sturt University. Her research focuses on understanding the drivers of phenology in wheat, barley and oats and using management to adjust timing of crop development to optimize yield and adaptation across variable environments. Felicity was awarded the 2017 Australian Society of Agronomy Conference Young Agronomist award and is a partner in her family farm at Junee in southern NSW.
Abstract:
The significance of an optimal flowering period to align the critical period for yield development with favourable seasonal conditions has been established. This ensures the combined risk of frost, heat and drought is minimised, therefore maximising grain yield potential for a given location. Whilst this concept provides achievable targets for growers to mitigate risk of abiotic stresses, they remain a major limitation to the advancement of yields of wheat and barley in Australian rainfed cropping systems. A comparative analysis was conducted across 31 diverse locations in NSW, VIC, SA, and WA spanning from 2010–2022. Annual rainfall varied from 117–978 mm and we reported grain yields ranging from 0.5–11.8 t/ha across these sites. Grain yield was collected in conjunction with flowering time (phenology) to investigate the relationship between yield and flowering dates in locations where frost, heat and drought are major sources of variation in crop yield, and a significant concern for growers. We consider the importance of integrating genotype (G) × environment (E) × management (M) interactions to synergies to rethink our understanding of flowering time in wheat and barley to better enable growers to adapt to climate variability and achieve yield potential.