Developing and commercializing new pasture legumes for clay soils in the semi-arid rangelands of northern Australia: the new Desmanthus cultivars JCU 1–5 and the Progardes story

Vast areas of semi-arid clay soil rangeland regions of northern Australia, such as the Mitchell Grass Downs Bioregion, have (until recently) no commercially available or adapted sown pasture legume. Other regions and land types with clay soils too, such as the Brigalow region have had a very limited range of sown pasture legume species available. Low livestock productivity in northern Australia is largely due to low protein content and low digestibility of the diet during the dry season. An adapted pasture legume could ameliorate this problem and enhance the productivity and sustainability of the region's grazing sector. Of all the legume species tested to date in this region a number of Desmanthus species are the preeminent survivors and are proving to be well adapted. After extensive surveys of old abandoned trial sites, selection and further evaluation, and seed increase a number of Desmanthus accessions have been developed and released commercially for semiarid tropical/subtropical clay soil regions of northern Australia. These new selections come from D. bicornutus, D. leptophyllus and D. virgatus genotypes and the new cultivars are named JCU 1, JCU 2, JCU 3, JCU 4 and JCU 5 and PBR has been granted on these five cultivars. A commercial composite blend of these five cultivars has been named ProgardesTM and commercial seed production and cultivation is well advanced, with some 20,000 ha being sown to date, mostly in Queensland