| Researcher(s) |
Claire Browne Ben Fleet Gurjeet Gill Kate Maddern |
|---|---|
| Contact email | gurjeet.gill@adelaide.edu.au |
| Contact phone | 08 83137744 |
| Year(s) | 2019 |
| Contributor | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine - The University of Adelaide |
| Trial location(s) |
Birchip, VIC, VIC
|
The aim of this experiment was to determine the effect of sowing time, barley density and herbicides on brome grass control.
A field trial was undertaken at Kinnabulla (VIC) in 2019 to investigate combinations of sowing time, seed rate and herbicide treatments to control brome grass in barley. Spartacus CL barley was used in this trial to enable the use of Intervix® for post-emergence control of brome grass. In 2019, the trial site received 181 mm rainfall during the growing season (April-October), which was 23% lower than the long-term average for the site. However in December 2018, the site received a heavy downpour of 199 mm, which created good growing conditions for barley crop grown in 2019. In this trial, barley seeding rate did not have a significant effect on either yield (P=0.213), brome panicles/m2 at maturity (P=0.889) or brome seed set/m2 (P=0.409). This lack of effect of crop seed rate on the number of brome panicles and seed set could be related to the high plant available water during the crop and weed life-cycle or due to Spartacus being a less competitive barley cultivar due to its erect architecture. Time of sowing had a significant effect on brome panicles/m2 at maturity and brome seed set/m2. TOS 2 had a lower brome panicle density at maturity than TOS 1 across all herbicide strategies, which was most likely due to low pre-sowing weed kill in TOS 1 as brome grass had not yet germinated. However, brome population that had germinated after the opening rains was killed by glyphosate application prior to seeding barley in TOS 2. As the numbers of panicles were lower in TOS 2, brome seed set was also reduced in TOS2 relative to TOS 1. Herbicide strategy had a significant effect on barley grain yield. As the herbicides reduced the impact of brome on barley, its yield increased from 3.24 t/ha in the knockdown treatment (NIL), to 3.72 t/ha in the pre-emergent herbicides only and to 3.96 t/ha when the pre-emergent herbicides were followed by post-emergent Intervix. Somewhat surprisingly, TOS 2 produced higher yields than TOS 1 across all the treatments, with the greatest difference being 0.46 t/ha in the Nil herbicide treatments. However, the yield difference between the two times of sowing decreased when more effective herbicides were used (0.08t/ha difference between TOS 1 and 2 in pre-emergent only and 0.04t/ha difference when pre-emergent herbicides followed by Intervix). Higher barley grain yield in the later sown crop is most likely due to a significantly greater weed density in barley in TOS 1 than in TOS 2, as large numbers of early germinating brome plants were controlled with glyphosate knockdown in TOS 2. TOS 1 also experienced a mild frost during flowering, resulting in patchy frost damage. Furthermore, May 23 (TOS 2) sowing date still falls within the optimum sowing window for Spartacus, which is an early maturity variety, and TOS 1 on April 29 was earlier than optimum for this variety.
| Lead research organisation |
School of Agriculture, Food and Wine - The University of Adelaide |
|---|---|
| Host research organisation |
Birchip Cropping Group |
| Trial funding source | GRDC 9175134 |
| Related program | N/A |
| Acknowledgments |
GRDC for providing funds for this research project. |
| Other trial partners | Not specified |
| Crop types | Cereal (Grain): Barley Weed: Brome grass |
|---|---|
| Treatment type(s) |
|
| Trial type | Experimental |
| Trial design | Randomised,Replicated,Blocked |
| Sow date | 29 April and 23 May |
|---|---|
| Harvest date | Not applicable |
| Plot size | Not specified |
| Plot replication | Not specified |
| Other trial notes |
Refer to the attached trial report (PDF) for further details. |
| Sow date | Not specified |
|---|---|
| Harvest date | Not specified |
| Plot size | Not specified |
| Plot replication | Not specified |
| Other trial notes |
Refer to the attached trial report (PDF) for further details. |
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.
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