VICTORIAN Mallee grain growers can now access their disease management plans for this season’s winter crops, with a new guide containing the latest disease information.
Agriculture Victoria’s recently released the 2025 cereal and pulse disease guides, in collaboration with the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), ranking varieties for disease susceptibility and providing advice on reducing disease risk.
The guides are pivotal for both new and commonly grown grains in Australia, such as wheat, barley, oats, lentil, field pea, broad bean and chickpea.
Agriculture Victoria plant pathology research leader Joshua Fanning said “the guides will help growers make seasonally informed decisions around disease management”.
“Despite less disease observed during 2024, any paddocks with stubble remaining that had disease previously, will increase the risk,” Mr Fanning said.
“Proactively managing disease in 2025 will be very important as seasonal conditions will determine the severity of disease.
“Wide-spread use of susceptible varieties will increase the risk if conditions are favourable for disease development.
“(PREDICTA B) testing prior to sowing will identify paddocks at risk of soil-borne disease and help growers choose less-susceptible varieties.”
Agriculture Victoria cereal pathologist Hari Dadu said fungicide resistance is an increasing issue, particularly in wheat and barley.
“During the 2024 season net form net blotch (NFNB) showed wide-spread resistance to fungicide resistance, particularly fluxapyroxad,” Mr Dadu said.
“The disease guide will assist in selecting varieties with resistance to various diseases, reducing the need for fungicide applications and supporting better fungicide resistance management.”
The disease ratings in the guides are based on the current understanding of recent diseases present not only in Victoria, but all over Australia, and on recent data collected for expert plant pathologists who work around the country, with support from the GRDC.
The 2025 Cereal Disease Guide and 2025 Pulse Disease Guide are available on the Agriculture Victoria website (agriculture.vic.gov.au/biosecurity/plant-diseases/grain-pulses-and-cerealdiseases).
