To treat the canola as a forage brassica until autumn, when it would be locked up to be carried on to produce grain at harvest 2012.
Key messages
Winter habit canola was successfully sown in spring 2011, grazed over summer and harvested for grain in 2012.
Grazing over summer increased grain yield compared to no grazing. Ungrazed yield was 1.9 t/ha, grazed was 2.7 t/ha. Taurus sown at the conventional time (April) yielded 2.3t/ha.
Number of grazings had a small effect on yield. Grazing twice produced the best result, yielding 0.1t/ha more than grazing once and 0.2t/ha more than grazing three times. Although there was a yield penalty by grazing 3 times compared to two times, the third grazing supplied an additional 1t/ha of high quality feed at the beginning of May.
Heavy grazing reduced yield compared to light grazing irrespective of the number of times it was grazed. However the reduction in yield was small and the heavy grazing produced 4t/ha of feed compared to 1.4 t/ha when lightly grazed.
Applying nitrogen over summer has no yield benefits except for multiple (3) heavy grazings. In this case yield went from 2.0 t/ha to 2.7 t/ha
Lead research organisation
N/A
Host research organisation
N/A
Trial funding source
GRDC
Related program
N/A
Acknowledgments
Hamilton Branch and Committee, Doug McArthur for use of the land.
No observed climate data available for this trial. Derived climate data is
determined from trial site location and national weather sources.
Dunkeld VIC
SILO weather estimates sourced from https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/silo/
Jeffrey, S.J., Carter, J.O., Moodie, K.B. and Beswick, A.R. (2001). Using spatial interpolation to
construct a comprehensive archive of Australian climate data , Environmental Modelling and Software, Vol
16/4, pp 309-330. DOI: 10.1016/S1364-8152(01)00008-1.
