Farmers throughout the region have had their say on the future of research and development in the grain growing industry.
The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) Northern Panel Spring Tour ran for four days last week, with panellists stopping in Chinchilla on Wednesday night and Warra and Dalby on Thursday. Dozens of growers attended the Warra meeting at Wade Bidstrup's property, where researchers updated producers on an ongoing sorghum trial and listened to their thoughts on what type of research should be done next. Panellist and Hopeland producer Arthur Gearon said some key feedback they'd heard throughout the trials was about ways to keep producing during drought.
"This trip in particular it's been very dry, so there's been a large demand for people to be able to grow, to moisture seek with their wheat varieties so they're really looking for a long coleoptile wheat variety,” Mr Gearon said.
Other feedback was based on demand for alternatives to eradicate persistent weeds, and the need for an alternate summer legume or crop besides sorghum in the west. Mr Gearon said the feedback will be collated into a report and distributed in the GRDC.
"But beyond that when we're as a panel making decisions on future investments we'll all have at the forefront of our minds what is required for this region, and if we can adapt any current research to be more applicable in certain aspects then we'll be able to do that as well.
"It's (the tour) a really good opportunity for the panel to act as that conduit to make sure that the researchers are hitting the demands of what the growers are requiring.”
Chinchilla News - 'Growers have their say' by Brooke Duncan, 19th September 2018
