Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Trial location(s)
Bungunya, QLD
Aims
Farming systems projects funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) are assessing ways to improve the use of our total rainfall, with the aim of achieving 80% of the water and nitrogen-limited yield potential in our cropping systems.
Key messages
1. Summer cover crops can be very profitable; improving ground cover and increasing fallow water storage in long fallows to improve grain yields and boost returns in northern farming systems.
2. A later spray-out produced additional levels of a cover that is more resilient and stored more water in the longer fallow. Delaying spray-out too long reduced fallow water storage considerably.
3. Using a summer cover crop saved two fallow herbicide sprays and dramatically improved establishment of the subsequent wheat crop.
4. Yields and returns were increased by the cover crops, and yields were well in excess of those expected from the increased soil water storage alone.
Lead research organisation
Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Host research organisation
N/A
Trial funding source
GRDC DAQ00211)
Related program
N/A
Acknowledgments
We very much appreciate the support of the trial co-operator and consultants for their effort and contributions to the project, along with our project team members in CSIRO (Neil Huth, Brook Anderson), David Freebairn, and the DAF Biometry, Technical and Research Infrastructure staff that supported the heavy management and monitoring loads of these experiments. Thanks also to the Grains Research and Development Corporation, Cotton Research and Development Corporation and the Department of
Agriculture and Fisheries for funding the project (DAQ00211).
Trial source data and summary not available Check the trial
report PDF for trial results.
Climate
Derived climate information
No observed climate data available for this trial. Derived climate data is
determined from trial site location and national weather sources.
Bungunya QLD
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.
