NSW DPIRD's Col McMaster talks us through tips and tactics to optimise establishment and maximise your planting opportunity. 

Topics include:

• Seed size and seed source.
• Planting time and depth.
• Seed bed moisture.
• The effects of different planting machines and press wheels.

Based on a tonne of local data done by NSW DPIRD and other collaborators through the GRDC national project to boost canola establishment. 

Listen to what our favourite NSW DPIRD cereal pathologists Brad Baxter, Wagga and Steve Simpfendorfer, Tamworth have to say re the 2026 season:
• What diseases were an issue in 2025 & the consequences of those for 2026.
• The dry summer & what that means for both foliar and stubble borne diseases in 2026.
• Stubble testing.
• Crown rot & tips for management.

Rutherglen bugs: from the trenches to your crops...... 

Hear what NSW DPIRD's Zorica Duric & CSIRO's Hazel Parry have to say about: -

-Why they are a problem this year. 

-How to monitor. 

-Control options

Seasonal disease update with the NSW DPIRD plant pathology lads.
-what to do from now till the end of the year with disease.
-Stripe rust happenings.
-Sclerotinia in canola & pulses.
-Bacterial blight and crown rust & harvest

Are YOU guilty of recreational spraying?????

🎧 PODCAST: Cereal disease update with Steve Simpfendorfer 🎧

Join us for the latest chat with Simphy on what is happening with cereal diseases in the central and northern regions of NSW.

-Stripe rust: yes its about. What varieties are a concern, disease basics & how to manage it from now till harvest 

-Crown rot, leaf rust, yellow leaf spot etc.

-Barley: lots of net form net blotch and some loose smut.

-AND Ascochyta blight found in chickpeas in the last week.

They’re back. The NSW DPIRD ‘dynamic duo’ of Brad Baxter and Steve Simpfendorfer join us for the first in-crop disease podcast.

•The impact of climate on crops: of the samples received in the north this season, 68% were NOT DISEASE.
•Cereal disease update & what might be a problem for the rest of the season.
•Frequent questions being asked from the paddock.
•No stripe rust to report at yet.

Listen to NSW DPIRD's sorghum expert Loretta Serafin discuss the on-farm research conducted in NW NSW over the last ~ 5 years by her team on agronomic tweaks for sorghum yield improvement.

• Setting your paddock up for success.
• Optimising planting time & the place of early planting.
• Choosing the most suitable row spacings for your region.
• Getting nutrition right.
• Hybrid selection.

We talk to NSW DPIRD's aphid & virus experts, Joop van Leur, Zorica Duric & Solomon Maina on:
-Viruses: the basics & why they mutate & how they are transmitted.
-Aphids: which ones are an issue to us in winter cropping.
-Insecticide resistance.
-Management options.

Listen to NSW DPIRD's Kurt Lindback & Marcrofts Grains Pathology, Steve Marcroft talk all things blackleg in canola:
-disease life cycle -seedling versus upper canopy infection
-how to know the risk in your paddock
-varietal resistance. The differences & how & why this changes
-when to use & not to use fungicides
-fungicide resistance.

Listen to NSW DPIRD's 'dynamic duo', Steve Simpfendorfer and Brad Baxter discuss:

• What we learnt in 2024 and disease legacy effects for 2025.
• What's showing up in the stubble testing from this summer.
• What diseases could be an issue this season.
• Management tips.