New Noodle variety is all about balance

Kinsei has been selected as the name of InterGrain’s new Australian Noodle Wheat (ANW), which will be commercially available for growers from 2019.

InterGrain chief executive officer Tress Walmsley said the plant breeding company had been working closely with GSG students over the past few months to name the wheat, which will be grown for the Japanese and Korean udon noodle market.

She said GSG boarder Harrison Dolan, Nyabing, suggested the name which meant ‘balance’ in Japanese.

“We thought that was really appropriate because it’s all about balancing improvements for the grower – which is about yield and agronomics – and then also balancing the quality requirements that the Japanese and the Korean customers want,” Ms Walmsley said.

Students from GSG joined the InterGrain team, growers and industry stakeholders at the variety launch at Albany’s Garrison Restaurant on Friday, where they sampled udon noodles made from Kinsei and learnt about the breeding processes and agronomic package behind the wheat, formerly known as IGW8048.

Ms Walmsley said Kinsei had been 11 years in the making and would be a potential replacement for Yitpi and Calingiri.

She said Kinsei was a high yielding, late maturing ANW suited to early sowing from late April to early May.

“For a long time growers have been planting Calingiri and one of the reasons why is because it can be planted early,” Ms Walmsley said.

“We think Kinsei is a similar, if not slightly longer maturity type than Calingiri, which will allow growers that early planting opportunity which we haven’t had in a new noodle variety for quite some time.”

According to InterGrain’s product profile, the new variety performed well in National Variety Trials (NVT), out-yielding Yitpi by an average of eight per cent over a five-year period.

Kinsei’s profile boasted good physical grain characteristics and demonstrated a general udon quality improvement compared to Zen and Ninja.

Ms Walmsley said trials conducted by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development had also shown positive results, as well as demonstrations carried out by grower group Stirlings to Coast Farmers.

She said the variety had a good disease package, and was best suited to the higher rainfall region of the Great Southern, where previous noodle varieties were not well suited.

“It’s got good stripe rust and leaf rust resistance and what we call useful levels of stem rust and yellow leaf spot resistance,” Ms Walmsley said.

“It’s got a similar sprouting tolerance to Calingiri.”