Seed production of Australian native grass cultivars: an overview of current information and future research needs

Abstract

Cultivars of Australian native grasses released in the 1990s are potentially useful for improving the composition of degraded pastures, roadside revegetation and sowing in low-care amenity situations. Over 20 selections or cultivars have been identified and progressed to the stage of commercial seed increase. This review focuses on the challenge of producing high-yielding seed crops for this range of promising Australian native grasses with the aim of fostering commercial-scale seed production operations. Commercialisation of the current suite of native grass cultivars has been difficult, which is often the case for new herbage species. There are a variety of reasons for this including: (i) that experience gained in breeder’s nurseries was not directly transferable to commercial seed growers; (ii) that knowledge of the biology of many species was incomplete; (iii) a lack of basic management information for these new species; and (iv) failure to rigorously apply what is known about the seed increase of new species. Success of new cultivars as seed crops depends on addressing seed production issues as part of the overall cultivar development program, and on breeders maintaining close links with innovative commercial seed growers until the major seed production barriers are overcome and commercial seed becomes available.