Top-of-mind issues such as row spacing, planting rates and the latest early-cut varieties were openly discussed by the company's key marketing and breeding personnel, who were on hand to answer questions from producers who had travelled from as far as Roma.

Developments in row spacing were detailed by forage crop breeder, Peter Stuart, who explained the outcome of growing one oat variety, a forage triticale, also a silage barley on different row spacings.

Planted on April 15, and just recently cut, they were sown on 8-inch, 16in and 32in row spacings, principally to gauge their yield impacts.

Planting rates had been in the order of 50kg/ha, 30kg/ha and 15kg/ha respectively.

"The message is that the traditional, narrow rows did give the highest yields on early cuts, as expected," Mr Stuart said.

"But by the end of the season, and in the absence of irrigation, the wider rows were expected to perform better."

Mr Stuart and his colleagues concluded that wider rows delivered better overall results the further west these crops were grown, principally by offering more uniform growth in districts where available moisture was at a premium.

Meanwhile, forage crop business manager, Ken Reimers, told producers that the latest silage barley variety, Pacific Ranger, was ready to be cut for silage at 98 days.

This compared with existing varieties such as Dictator which took 129 days to reach a similar maturity – a worthwhile economic incentive for many producers.

However, he warned that this variety was not recommended as a grazing barley because the quick-growing trait translated into higher growing points on the plant which could be very easily grazed off.

"If that's done the whole tiller will die and the plant has to re-shoot from the bottom," Mr Reimers said.

"It therefore won't come back well after a graze or a cut – hence we market it as a silage barley."