GRDC Podcast

Welcome to GRDC’s National Variety Trials, or NVT new variety podcast series, where Australia's leading breeding companies share their latest releases for the 2026 growing season. When it comes to choosing the right variety, NVT is the only independent variety information source trusted by Australian growers. In GRDC's 2025 grower survey, nine out of 10 growers accessed NVT information, and 94 per...

When it comes to storing fertiliser on-farm, small mistakes can turn into big problems. In this GRDC podcast, Grain Storage Extension Team member, Ben White shares practical advice on the dos and don’ts of fertiliser storage. From choosing quality product and limiting handling, through to managing moisture and avoiding dangerous silo blockages. He also highlights the safety risks growers need to b...

No matter what crop you grow, or livestock you run, the soil beneath your boots is the foundation of your farm's productivity, profitability, and long-term sustainability. And while soil has always been a cornerstone for grain growers, there's never been a consistent way to define, measure, monitor, or report on soil health in Australia. That's why GRDC has invested in the development of a nationa...

Growers around the Eradu area of Western Australia's northern growing region have been deep ripping for many years. Now they're going back and re-ripping for a second, third, fourth, and even fifth time with different machinery as it has progressed over the years. It's all about getting highly alkaline surface soil down deeper in the profile to address subsoil acidity, and at the same time, managi...

Fungicide resistance is a serious threat to cropping. When all available registered fungicides are no longer effective at managing disease, options for widespread disease control become limited, and the result is high yield losses. So, when a gateway mutation, the first step toward fungicide resistance in wheat powdery mildew (WPM), was detected in samples collected in Western Australia, alarm bel...

Don't wait until harvest to consider how you are going to protect your stored grain. That's the message from GRDC's stored grain extension team. When it comes to grain storage, the more you invest in pre-harvest preparation, the better the outcome. This episode features Chris Warrick from the Stored Grain Extension Team who talks about the most important strategies to implement.   Contact: Chris W...

Do you want to nail those snails in the crop? Well, naming those snails is the first step. In this episode, Prue Adams is in York Peninsula, on the snail trail and speaking with Dr Kym Perry, research fellow in entomology at the University of Adelaide. He goes into detail about the four main snail culprits in crops, how to identify, and what to do about them. Contact: Dr Kym Perry The University o...

At just one millimetre long, redlegged earth mites are tiny, but that doesn't stop them from causing significant damage across Australia, especially in regions with cool, wet winters. To find out how growers can best manage this pest – we talk to Dr Paul Umina from Cesar Australia. The project ' Leading practice management of the Redlegged earth mite (RLEM)' is a GRDC investment that is led by Ces...

Oli Le Lievre interviews Andrew and Marie Fowler about their innovative farming practices in Esperance, Western Australia. The Fowlers, who met through Andrew's Nuffield Scholarship, have expanded their family farm significantly. They focus on crop-livestock rotations, emphasizing no-till farming and crop grazing. Andrew discusses their current drainage project, which involves installing tile pipe...

Justine Baillie and Michael Scobie are the co-leads of the Ag Technology Adoption program at the University of Southern Queensland. They’re trialling and investigating a range of different types of technology to help growers boost crop quality and yield, in a bid to revolutionise farming. The project is providing tools and capacity for drought preparedness through the integration of digital techno...

At GRDC's National Grower Network (NGN) forums, growers have been asking for information about the cost of inorganic P fertilisers and potential lower cost options of organic P fertilisers. A GRDC investment to explore this topic has delivered some interesting outcomes and to find out the details we speak to Maurie Street from the Grain Orana Alliance, and Dr Tim McLaren from the University of Que...

Ash Wiese is a farmer, food producer and agribusiness innovator from Western Australia. In this episode of GRDC In Conversation, host Oli Le Lievre sits down with Ash to explore his fascinating journey from studying accounting to returning to his family farm and revolutionising the way grains are marketed. Ash shares insights from his Nuffield Australia Scholarship, highlighting lessons learned fr...

We know Brolga and Kookaburra are great Australian birds but they are also the names of two new, game changing varieties of mungbeans. To find out how growers can access these higher yielding mungbean varieties, we speak to Queensland Department of Primary Industries principal plant breeder, Dr Merrill Ryan. Also during this podcast we talk to Allora grower, Tim Thorne, who is considering the vari...

Kate Witham is a research agronomist in Western Australia and has a passion for broad acre cropping. She’s also the 2025 recipient of GRDC'S “Emerging Leader Award” in the West. So far, Kate’s career highlight has been her role as the SLR lead working on GRDC’s Long Coleoptile Wheat project, led by CSIRO. She's a dynamic operator in the industry, helping growers reap the benefits of her ongoing re...

In this episode of GRDC In Conversation, host Oli Le Lievre sits down with Brad Egan, a forward-thinking grain grower from Esperance, Western Australia. Brad shares insights into the evolution of his family farm, the challenges of farming in a changing climate, and how data-driven decision-making is helping to improve productivity despite declining rainfall.  From using drones to optimise spraying...

Precision weed management is where optical sensors and remote and sensor weed mapping systems are used to target weeds and therefore cut herbicide costs. The technology is becoming more widely available, which is why GRDC is investing in a series of case studies, to explore the benefits and costs related to these technologies. With green on brown systems, weeds can be detected in a fallow field. A...

In Australian canola crops, turnip yellows virus is the one of the most widespread and economically damaging viruses, and over the past decade, epidemics have commonly occurred in different regions causing considerable losses.   Turnip yellows virus is particularly challenging to manage because it is transmitted by green peach aphid and needs just a few aphids per plant to cause substantial spread...

In this episode of GRDC In Conversation, host Oli Le Lievre sits down with Callum Wesley, a third-generation farmer from Southern Cross, WA. They discuss Callum’s innovative approach to farming in a low-rainfall zone and his journey collaborating with researchers that has led to a nationwide research project which could revolutionise seeding strategies for dryland farmers across Australia. Callum...

GRDC, CSIRO and University of South Australia have done a lot of work on how to deal with the sandy soil situation. Hot off the back of a huge investment, culminating in a series of workshops in 2023, they're scaling up, taking the machines and expertise to more than 20 farms across the southern region. It's a project with a great deal of grower involvement and targeted to making that sandy stuff...

A passion for pulses and in particular a love of lentils has inspired the career of research scientist Dr Audrey Delahunty. Growers are already benefiting from Dr Delahunty’s research into genetic solutions for heat tolerance in lentils, and now she's extending into frost quality technology and other pulses. Meantime, Dr Delahunty is also the recipient of this year’s GRDC “Emerging Leader Award” i...

Gemma Walker is a mover and shaker in the Western Australian grains industry, literally! If she isn’t moving from a board meeting in one city to the next, she’s flying back home to the family sheep and wool property in Munglinup. Gemma is at the forefront of WA’s ag industry, promoting sustainable practices for the future as well as getting her hands dirty on the farm. In this episode of GRDC In C...

Sclerotinia stem rot is a canola disease that is challenging to manage using rotation due to the wide range of crops that play host to the fungus that causes it. Since there are no Australian canola cultivars with sclerotinia resistance, the disease is usually managed with preventative fungicide sprays at flowering. However, fungicides can be costly, and their return on investment is difficult to...

Precision weed management is where optical sensors and remote and sensor weed mapping systems are used to target weeds and therefore cut herbicide costs. GRDC is investing in a series of case studies to explore the benefits and costs related to precision weed management technologies. One of those case studies is Warakirri Cropping, one of Australia's largest grain growers with 11 cropping farms ac...

Ray Harrington has always had an eye on the battle taking place in the fields of Aussie agriculture, the war on weeds and pests. So, he and a group of like-minded farmers, researchers and innovators took up the torch to solve it once and for all. In this episode of GRDC’s In Conversation, host Oli Le Lievre speaks with Ray about his journey to inventing the Harrington Seed Destructor, one of the m...

Sclerotinia in lupin is a sporadic disease found across the WA grainbelt. When weather conditions favour disease spread, it can cause significant loss of yield and grain quality.   With GRDC investment, collaborative research by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, the Centre for Crop and Disease Management, and the Mingenew-Irwin Group has been looking at ways lupin grow...