DEVELOPING a new strain of pasture seed and shelling peas have a lot in common – just ask fifth generation farmer Rob Dent.
Both can be time consuming, tedious and not always fruitful, which was why Mr Dent travelled halfway across the world to get the combination right.
His search for a perennial grass that would grow in Victoria's arid north-west led the farmer from Carrick in northern Tasmania, to southern Spain in July 2007.
"We found a Hispanic cocksfoot growing in a similar climate to the Wimmera and the Mallee in southern Spain," he said.
Six years on, after numerous rounds of testing, sowing and crossing, Mr Dent's company, Tas Global Seeds, are one season away from producing a new hybrid seed on a commercial scale.
Mr Dent's unique position in the pasture seed market place was borne out of a reliance on imported seed from New Zealand.
"No one is doing plant breeding work in the pasture seed area in Australia, traditionally a lot of stuff is coming in from NZ," he said.
He said the majority of NZ imports were adapted to dairying conditions but don't tend to respond to drier conditions.
Mr Dent, who has been plant breeding for seven years, said recent cutbacks in investment from State governments have isolated the role of private companies and emphasised the importance of his practice.
"A lot of agriculture departments have pulled out (on breeding research) and left it to private enterprise," he said.
"It's something that not everyone else is doing. We're not trying to grow the new ryegrass, we're trying to produce plants that are going to grow in the dry areas."
Some breeders order their strands online and hope for the best, but Mr Dent said it was prudent to examine the environment in which the native plant was growing.
"We go to original sources of seed to collect seed, where the plant is native," he said.
"Some people get seed from gene banks in America where the seed has been collected by other people and stored."
Tas Global Seeds, in conjunction with the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, lease out the Cressy research centre to better develop certain strands of seeds and crops.
Despite all the research and effort, you would be doing well if one per cent of the foreign seed turns into profitable crops, Mr Dent said.
"It's quite variable because it’s wild seed, so we try and make selections and form crosses to make a new variety that will prosper in a different environment," he said.
- More in this week's Stock & Land