Condada SA trials

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Trial	Contributor Funding sources	Year	Trial site

Benchmarking water limited yield of cereal crops on major soil types across Eyre Peninsula This research aims to determine in which situations extra fertilisation can bring benefits to growers in 14 different Eyre Peninsula (EP) environments. Every season, growers need to make choices over limited resources in order to optimise their profitability. Soil type and water represent two of the key limiting resources which define the grain yield potential of a paddock. The unpredictability of growing season rainfall patterns restricts in-season fertiliser applications for EP growers, due to the associated high economic risks. As a risk management strategy, growers often apply lower rates of nutrients than required to achieve the water limiting yield potential (Sadras and Roget 2004, Monjardino et al. 2013). Therefore, less than optimum nutrient rates are applied in many instances, and maximum grain yield gains are not reached on occasions where opportunities have existed. Understanding soil water and nutrient dynamics can be useful to determine when in-season extra fertiliser applications are worth the investment in EP dryland farming systems. This study used a subset of the Eyre Peninsula Agricultural Research Foundation (EPARF) soil moisture probe network locations to benchmark the water limited yield potential and determine the achievable grain yield of cereals crops across major soil types of EP.	SARDI Minnipa Agricultural Centre	2019	Condada SA
Research organisaton
Capturing barley grass seeds in broad acre paddocks Barley grass continues to be a major grass weed in cereal cropping regions on the upper Eyre Peninsula (EP). Swathing a cereal crop involves cutting and collecting the cereal crop and weeds into windrows at 20 to 40% grain moisture and allowing it to dry. Having the weed seeds cut and in the windrow before the seed heads shatter and before tillers fall over (lodging), may allow greater weed seed collection when using a chaff cart or windrows. Swathing early then harvesting for weed seed collection needs further evaluation as it may provide farmers with another tool for integrated weed management, especially for barley grass that matures and sheds seed before crops ripen.	SARDI Minnipa Agricultural Centre SAGIT	2019	Condada SA
Research organisaton
Proximal sensing technologies on soils and plants on Eyre Peninsula This research was done to develop predictive formulas that can be used by growers to estimate in-season soil nutrients from soil samples taken at different depths and crop nutrient content from proximal sensing (PS) data. The upper Eyre Peninsula (UEP) is a challenging environment for growers, due to the irregular rainfall patterns which are coupled with lower soil fertility. Additionally, calcareous soils with poor structure and low water holding capacity provide additional restrictions for plant growth, as growers currently use granular fertilisers which require good soil moisture conditions to enable the uptake of nutrients. Topsoils from calcareous soils may dry quickly after rain events, which may explain poor water use and nutrient extraction efficiency. PS technologies have the potential to support grower’s nutrient management decisions by monitoring in-season soil and crop water and nutrient content (Allen et al. 2017, Arsego et al. 2017). PS uses a wide range of wavelengths to predict soil and crop nutritional status in a non-destructive, quick, and inexpensive way. PS technology is mostly limited to laboratory use. The development of small, portable PS devices may allow the use of this technology in farm paddocks in the near future. In this study, we combined different UEP trials to develop predictive models for PS for crop nitrogen, crop nutrient content and soil moisture.	SARDI Minnipa Agricultural Centre	2019	Condada SA
Research organisaton