The breeders of a new imi-tolerant lentil are confident a solid agronomic package, headlined by strong ascochyta blight resistance, will see good demand from growers.
The Terrier variety, bred by Australian Lentil Breeding and distributed by Seednet was officially launched at this week's Southern Pulse Agronomy field day at Jung in Victoria's Wimmera on Thursday.
Australian Lentil Breeding is the evolution of the former Agriculture Victoria lentil breeding program and is jointly funded by Agriculture Victoria and the Grains Research and Development Corporation.
Breeder Arun Shunmugam said one of the major selling points of Terrier was its strong performance against the fungal disease ascochyta blight which caused significant damage to lentils last year following heavy La Nina inspired spring rainfall.
Against the 'Nipper' strain of the disease it was rated resistant following national variety trial data and moderately resistant against the 'Hurricane' form of the blight.
"The strong disease package certainly has attracted good grower interest," Dr Shunmugam said.
Seednet territory manager Stu Ockerby said there would be a 'soft' launch for the lentils next year.
"We've got a limited amount of seed available, anyone interested in growing the variety should get in touch directly with Seednet, the seed will not be available through our partners next year."
Dr Shunmugam said the lentil had proved versatile in trials, performing well in a range of low and medium rainfall zones.
It has a small red seed similar to one of the country's flagship lentil varieties in Hurricane.
Mr Ockerby said along with its solid yield performance in the NVT, it also gave growers good flexibility at sowing with its ability to be planted early.
The naming of the new variety marks a changing of the guard in the lentil sector.
Previous imi-tolerant lentils were marked with the suffix XT, however, Seednet and ALB, recognising that most lentils released from now on were likely to have herbicide tolerance, have decided to drop the suffix from the official name.