A shrub that thrives on sandy, infertile soils could be made commercially available to farmers within two years.
Lebeckia is a South African legume which West Australian scientists have developed into a perennial grazing plant over the past decade.
The plant is similar to lucerne, a popular perennial pasture with good drought tolerance used by sheep producers for grazing.
Murdoch University Professor John Howieson, who has lead the research into Lebeckia, said it had the ability to thrive on arid soils on which lucerne would even be unable to establish.
Professor Howieson said Lebeckia was designed to be used by farmers on soils that may have otherwise been completely unproductive.
"If you can get a well adapted, grazable, perennial legume on those soils in the summer months [you can get] overall better carrying capacity for your flock because you've got green feed in summer," he said.
"And I think in Western Australia you could consider that to be a Holy Grail."
Professor Howieson said he would conduct a semi-commercial harvest of seed from farms with Lebeckia trial crops in December.
He said he wanted to collect enough seed for a large-scale sowing.
"At this point in time I've used all the seed for experimentation," he said.
"We haven't set about establishing a paddock from which we can have a regular supply of seed."
Professor Howieson said he was still working out how to sell the seed to help fund ongoing research, but expected to be able to make Lebeckia seed available to farmers by 2019.
Teething problems in practice
Sheep and cropping farmer Peter Cripps planted a quarter-hectare trial crop of Lebeckia in July 2016 and said he was broadly pleased with the plant's performance.
But Mr Cripps, who farms at West Binnu 530 kilometres north of Perth, said he had experienced some issues that he said would need to be addressed before the plant was widely distributed.
He said the plant had been damaged by insects and that his sheep had been uninterested in eating the Lebeckia when he let them into the trial paddock for grazing.
"They wandered around it and sniffed it," he said.
"They just pretty much ate the annual grasses that were growing around it."
Mr Cripps said he was impressed with the plants hearty nature and its strong root system.
He said he would work with Professor Howieson to address teething problems.
