Spring radiation frost is a significant annual production constraint for the Australian grains industry and can result in significant yield losses. In 2014 the GRDC established a National Frost Initiative with the objective of reducing the impact of frost in cereal crops. The Initiative has three research programs, Genetics, Management and Environment. Within the Genetics Program a key outcome is to identify and deliver new genetic sources of frost tolerance to Australian breeding organisations.

Benchmarking trials conducted in the Australian National Frost Program have shown that wheat is overall more sensitive to reproductive frost damage than barley, however genetic variation for susceptibility exists within current wheat and barley cultivars.

The goal of the current project is to:

1. continue screening commercial wheat and barley varieties for frost susceptibility and provide varietal ranking data to growers; and

2. to identify new sources of frost tolerance in wheat.

   The current project will facilitate this by mining global wheat genetic resources for potential sources of frost tolerance. To strategically screen these resources, the project will use a Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy (FIGS) which incorporates global climate and landscape data to select wheat accessions from frost prone parts of the world. Shortlisted wheat accessions will be screened for frost damage in Australia using frost nurseries and standardised protocols. Genetic analysis will be conducted to identify DNA markers associated with improved frost tolerance.