Australia's competitiveness in the world popcorn market looks set to improve with a trial of long-season, high-yielding genetics.
Rob and Danni Ingram, Avondale, Emerald, have 260 hectares of Dolphin Seeds Butterfly popcorn planted, testing five different varieties and their suitability for the central Queensland growing region.
Mr Ingram said the growing season had been perfect so far and the crop was growing well, with no visible performance differences between the varieties.
"We haven't had any rain which hasn't been overly helpful, but we've had nice sunny weather, not too hot, and nice nights so it's been good," he said.
"I'd prefer to see it rain than this weather, but it is what it is."
Rain saw the Ingrams plant 100ha into wheat stubble in mid-February, followed by a further 160ha in mid-March.
"That was stuff that we just didn't get enough moisture in the ground and we had to flush up, so we've got an early crop and a month-later crop," Mr Ingram said.
"We've just had our allocation increased to 45 per cent, so that will give me enough water to water it all 100pc.
"I'm just starting the third irrigation, and it will get another one. The younger stuff has had one and it will get another three, so it'll get about four in-crops."
Predominantly an irrigated cotton grower, Mr Ingram said the timing of the rain, coupled with the return on popcorn, made it a favourable crop to grow this season.
"The money has come up a bit in the last couple of years and it was too late to plant cotton," he said.
"We can only plant Bollgard cotton through to the end of December so after that we're looking to either grow sorghum, corn or mungbeans."
Forgoing the sorghum, the Ingrams also planted 130ha of irrigated mungbeans.
"They were planted on moisture too, but I've given them one irrigation.
"They're looking good. They'll be sprayed out next week and we'll be harvesting them in the next three weeks.
"The early-plant corn, I expect to harvest in June, and the later stuff in August."
A crop that's not widely grown in Australia due to the limited number of contracts awarded, Dolphin Seeds managing director John Auer said the variety trials are about improving yields for the existing popcorn grower base.
"Over the years, we've struggled to get high yields in popcorn in central Queensland, in part because it's normally grown over winter, but also because the varieties perhaps could be improved," Mr Auer said.
Trialling long-season varieties with the aim of increasing yield was in response to addressing the problems brought about by the short day lengths of winter in Queensland, he said.
"Dolphin Seeds has been breeding and working with breeders around the world, particularly breeders that are breeding popcorn for places like Brazil in winter, trying to find areas that are similar to central Queensland over winter," Mr Auer said.
"These are the first winter trials. We've got them extensively in summer trials in the south to look also to see how they handle the summer climates, but we're specifically looking for material that can be adaptable to a tropical winter, for disease and things like shortening day length."
Despite the aim to improve Australia's competitiveness in the global market, Mr Auer said popcorn was not a crop to grow opportunistically.
"The market in Australia is quite small and there's no secondary market for it," he said.
"If you don't get it into the popcorn confectionery market, your price is going to be a quarter.
"There is a large export market into South East Asia which is traditionally buying grain from North America.
"Historically, we haven't had the genetics that have been able to provide the quality to compete in South East Asia; Dolphin Seeds has been bringing in genetics that will compete very comfortably on quality and on yield with what the North Americans are doing."
