Lucerne for dryland farming systems in the subtropics

Abstract

The degraded fertility of cropping soils in the Queensland grain belt can be improved by using lucerne, either in short or longer-term rotations. Research in collaboration with NSW Agriculture to improve the adoption of lucerne in farming systems, includes breeding and commercialising better cultivars. Lucerne “probe sets”, comprising cultivars, accessions and breeder lines, were sown at 5 sites in 1997 to measure their production and persistence and to set genetic ideotype targets for further breeding. Highly winter active lines were the most productive and there were some winter active lines that expressed strong persistence traits. The winter active benchmark cv. Trifecta has been clearly superseded but production by the highly winter active benchmark, cv. Sequel was exceeded by only cv. Rippa and Y9549. Breeding for higher winter activity is a priority for short-term rotation lucernes for the Queensland grain belt. For this, there is a strong existing germplasm base to combine with well-selected accessions.