Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Trial location(s)
Yelarbon, QLD
Aims
Can cover crops increase infiltration and net water accumulation in pivot-irrigated cotton systems with low (<30%) ground cover?
Key messages
1. Winter cover crops can improve ground cover, increase plant available water and improve subsequent cotton yields in pivot-irrigated systems.
2. The early spray-out treatment was the best cover crop for storing water over the short fallow in this study where cover did not have to last very long. However, the extra cover in the mid-terminated cover treatment continued to boost infiltration in the cotton’s
early growth stages.
3. All cover crop treatments improved the yields of cotton by approximately 3 bales/ha; well in excess of any gains expected from the increased fallow soil water storage.
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.
Yelarbon 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.
