Titan 5

Semi-winter dormant Titan 5 is an exciting new lucerne variety combining a 50:50 cross between Medicago sativa lucerne (purple flower) and Medicago falcata (yellow flower) lucerne.

Medicago falcata, regarded as a more resilient species of Medicago, is geographically distributed and originated in the cold and dry areas of Russia, Mongolia, Scandinavia, and China. It tends to be more drought/winter hardy compared with M. sativa. Therefore M. falcata is often considered as a potential parent in breeding (Riday et al. 2002). Often referred to as ‘Siberian lucerne’.

The introduction of unique M. falcata material provides the potential to add new diverse genetices to capture traits for persistence, drought tolerance and water use efficiency over traditional M. sativa varieties of similar dormancy. It is bred in Australia and is suitable to a range of climatic conditions.