Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries trials

Development of best management practices to increase the production of high-quality grade peanut kernels

This project will test the ability of sorghum to germinate and withstand cold temperatures during early growth stages in order to reduce
heat stress during flowering and grain fill.

Can systems performance be improved by modifying farming systems in the northern grains region?

What is the impact on system WUE ($ gross margin return per mm of system water use)?

This project is gathering data from these trial sites to ascertain whether the one-off application of either P, K or sulfur (S) placed in these deeper more depleted layers can provide a grain yield benefit and whether that benefit can be maintained over several years.

Can systems performance be improved by modifying farming systems in the northern grains region? Specifically, what impact do crop species and crop sequences have on soil- and stubble-borne pathogens?

Can systems performance be improved by modifying farming systems in thenorthern grains region? What are the impacts of crops and crop sequences on soil water accumulation and use?

This experiment has attempted to use rainfall timing (imitated by overhead irrigation) to mitigate the negative weather impacts on
dry matter production both before and after flowering in an early and late summer TOS. A wide gap between TOS was deliberately
used to create the largest contrast in weather conditions that the crop would experience and then monitor how the plant’s physiological
development changes in relation to changing soil water conditions.

Everyone knows that Queensland grows the best chickpeas, but chickpeas leave the soil quite bare. This bare soil then reduces our fallow efficiency (amount of fallow rainfall captured for use by the next crop), which is a big problem in an area that relies on stored soilwater for yield.

Our team recently completed a study growing cover crops in the fallow to improve ground cover and soilwater available to the next crop, so we understand the value of ground cover and when we saw the opportunity to try growing the cover crop with our chickpeas we were keen to give it a go.

Companion crops are not new or novel, they are in every home vege garden; from marigolds to keep the pests out of tomatoes, or flowers to attract pollinators into the pumpkin patch. What is novel is doing this on a broadacre scale and with mechanically harvested crops.

A review by CSIRO (Fletcher et al 2016) showed potential to increase crop productivity with intercrops; particularly with ‘peaola’ (canola and fieldpea), which increase productivity by 50% in 24 of 34 studies reviewed. They also found cereal-legume intercrops to increase productivity in 64% of studies.

That review focused on temperate cropping areas of southern Australian and internationally, so the question remains whether these systems will perform in a sub-tropical environment and a farming system reliant on stored soilwater for yield stability.

Given our reliance on stored soilwater for maintaining grain yield and the fallow efficiency cost of low stubble cover following chickpea; we focused our efforts on wheat and chickpea, with the research questions of: Can we increase stubble cover after chickpea? and What is the yield impact of growing wheat and chickpea together as companion crops?

To explore how much nitrogen is required to maximise mungbean yield and whether well-nodulated mungbean achieve the same yield as fertilised crops.

To explore:

• how much nitrogen is required to maximise mungbean yield;
• could well-nodulated mungbean achieve the same yield as fertilised crops?
• how differing the concentrations of soil nitrogen impact nitrogen fixation?

Can systems performance be improved by modifying farming systems in the northern grains region? | In Goondiwindi: (i) What are the trends that are expected in our farming systems? and (ii) How will these changes impact on the performance and status of our farming systems?

What are the long-term impacts on systems performance (e.g. productivity, profitability and soil health) when six strategically different 'farming systems' are applied to one geographic location over a five year period?

Can systems performance be improved by modifying farming systems in the northern grains region? | What are the trends that are expected and how will these changes impact on the performance and status of our farming systems?

In 2018, field experiments were conducted across ten sites in the northern grains region in Central and Southern Queensland, and
northern, central and southern New South Wales to determine optimal grain yield potential of wheat genotypes.

Recognising the increasing difficulty in effective fallow control of sowthistle and grasses and the potential role of residual herbicides, a series of field trials were established to compare efficacy of residual herbicide treatments across a range of environments and soil types.

This project is gathering data from these trial sites to ascertain whether a one-off application of either P, K or sulfur (S) that is placed in these deeper, more depleted layers can provide a grain yield benefit and whether that benefit can be maintained over several years.

This project is gathering data from these trial sites to ascertain whether a one-off application of either P, K or sulfur (S) placed in these
deeper, more depleted layers can provide a grain yield benefit and whether that benefit can be maintained over several years.

This project is gathering data from these trial sites to ascertain whether an application of P or K placed as a band in the subsurface profile can provide a grain yield benefit and whether that benefit (response) can be maintained over several years.

This research is questioning if placing immobile nutrients deeper into the soil can increase grain yield.

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.

Can systems performance be improved by modifying farming systems? How does increasing legume frequency or nutrient inputs impact on system nutrient balance and use?

Does active ingredient, row spacing or plant population impact the effectiveness of fungicides on powdery mildew control in mungbeans?

Can cover crops increase infiltration and net water accumulation in pivot-irrigated cotton systems with low (<30%) ground cover?