DS Pascal Trial

Evaluationof DS Pascal and a long season wheat variety and comparing it to the regionalstandard Mace.

Dumbleyung, WA, 2017

Summary

This trial was established on David Gray’s AgroAdvantagetrial site near Dumbleyung, Western Australia. The purpose of the trial is toshowcase and evaluate DS Pascal as a long season wheat variety optimised forearly sowing (mid-April) and to compare it to the regional standard Mace.

This trial was sown on the 24th of May 2017 intomoisture (following 40mm rainfall event on the 19th May). Late Mayis out of the optimal sowing window for DS Pascal however with no rainfall inApril and the first part of May it is unlikely that the crop would havegerminated as conditions were dry prior to the 19th of May.

With a very soft finish to the season we believe that bothDS Pascal and Mace reached their potential as there was plenty of moistureright to the end. Both varieties yielded very similarly with DS Pascal @ 4.49T/Ha and Mace @ 4.43 T/Ha. Protein levels were also very similar with DS Pascal@ 8.1% and Mace @ 8.13%.

With an early start to a season and a tough finish, webelieve there is definitely potential for growers to use DS Pascal to takeadvantage of rainfall events in April and optimise their yields while avoidingthe frost window. (As opposed to going with Mace in April – risky)

In season we pulled a number of plants from each variety tocompare their characteristics. Something that was very noticeable was that itrequired significantly more force to remove a DS Pascal plant over the Maceplant. See in the appendix a photo of the two plants and notice the differencein root mass. This was consistent in the 5 plants that were pulled. This trialwould have been very interesting if a tough finish was experienced.

Methodology

Trial Layout

Experimental Design

Design: Commercial Demonstration Replications: 3 Plot length: 25m Plot Width: 4m

Site, Crop and Application Details

Assessment Methods

Assessment Date: Assessment 08/09/2017 Photographs 20/11/2017 Yield

Data Analysis

All data analysis in this report was conducted using Microsoft Excel. Simple means, analysis of variance and the student t-test were used to determine statistical significance using the least significant difference method with a 95% confidence interval.