The GRDC Hyper Yielding Crops (HYC) project was set up to challenge the current boundaries of productivity in the high yielding regions of southern Australia. The objective was underpinned by five research centres across five states (WA, SA, Victoria, Tasmania and NSW), a series of HYC innovation groups and 25 focus farms to promote adoption. To create a community of interest in attaining higher productivity and profitability, the project introduced the HYC Awards and agronomic benchmarking for showcasing highest yielding (and highest yielding in terms of % of potential) wheats and barleys across those five states. The project delivered from 2020 – 2024 with the motto “seeing is believing”.

With a run of generally milder and wetter spring weather patterns HYC set new benchmarks for productivity in southern Australia, with research findings illustrating in four of the five states that wheat yields in excess of 11t/ha were possible. In the canola component of the project, trials suggested that strong fertility combined with the use of elite commercial canola cultivars, could increase yield potential to a possible 6t/ha in the HYC environments of Australia; this being achieved at two sites in 2021. HYC Award crops illustrated commercial crop yields of wheat in excess of 10t/ha in three of the states where HYC agronomy tactics were adopted.  

Having just completed its fourth and final year, results are now in for trials conducted across the five HYC research centres located in NSW, VIC, TAS, SA and WA; these can be accessed by clicking on the READ MORE tab below.

The Hyper Yielding Crops project team would like to place on record their grateful thanks to the Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC) for investing in this four-year R, D & E initiative.

Thank you to Hyper Yielding Crops project collaborators for making this project a success: 

Brill Ag, FAR Australia, CSIRO, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development in WA, Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI) at Federation University Australia, TechCrop, Southern Farming Systems, MacKillop Farm Management Group, Riverine Plains Inc and Stirlings to Coast Farmers.

Photo credit: Darcy Warren