trials

To assess strategies for reducing pre harvest losses in lentil

To understand the impact of differing wheat stubble loads on the establishment of canola under a range of locally relevant sowing practices.

To evaluate the impact of inoculum loads on septoria tiritici blotch severity and grian yields in wheat in the medium rainfall zone of southern Australia

To understand the effects of stubble, row spacing and row direction on plant growth, grain yield and pod drop of lentil varieties differeing in architecture and tolerance to pod drop.

To investigate the impact of standing stubble on disease progression and resulting yield loss in faba bean.

To investigate the impact of standing stubble on ascochyta blight infection and resulting yield loss in chickpeas.

The aim of this trial is to determine and demonstrate if stubble management treatments can lead to a reduction in conical snail numbers.

The trial is based on techniques used in SA where snails on the stubble are knocked to the ground on to days (35 deg +) where they dehydrate and die. 

The trial tested and analysed the effectiveness of three techniques- speed-tilling, cableing and stubble crunching on snail mortality.  

This trial aims to provide growers with a clear percentage of the effect of three stubble management techniques (cabling, stubble crunching and speed tillage) on small conical snail mortality.  

Introduce more ‘tools’ into growers’ repertoire to control snails & reduce reliance on snail baiting. 

Demonstrate the effectiveness of ‘GrainCam’ to identify snail hot spots in paddocks and map their distribution for targeted future management.

To demonstrate the feed value of high biomass summer forage crops for increasing stocking rates and live weight gain of prime lambs and beef cattle compared to current systems used in the high rainfall zone. 

To understand the impact of frost, and the interaction of stubble management, ripping and frost on pulses

The project seeks to:

• investigate, demonstrate and extend cultural practices that will assist growers to adopt no-till stubble retention (NTSR) in medium and higher-rainfall environments;
• build on findings from the previous Riverine Plains Inc. Water Use Efficiency (WUE) project; and
• extend the frontier of agronomic knowledge for crops grown in NTSR systems.

• Investigate the best practice foliar fungicide management for barley on barley rotations and STNB control in barley cv. Scope.
• Better understand the interactions of STNB, stubble and fungicides on the impact of disease, yield and profitability of barley on barley rotations.
• Investigate if higher levels of STNB are associated with head loss pre-harvest.

To investigate the threshold temperatures to kill weed seeds, and the temperatures achieved when burning crop residues in various formats to faciliate weed seed control of problematic weeds in low rainfall cropping systems. 

To determine the ROI from using a stripper front compared to a draper front.

To test the effectiveness of broadcasting canola into wheat stubble as a method of establishing a canola crop

The aim of this work is to understand the impact of stubble retention on in-canopy temperatures and associated risk of frost in cropping environments with high yields and high stubble loads.

The GRDC project ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble - upper Eyre Peninsula’ aims to produce sustainable management guidelines to control pests, weeds and diseases while retaining stubble to maintain or improve soil health, and reduce exposure to wind erosion. The major outcome to be achieved is increased knowledge and skills allowing farmers and advisers to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems on upper Eyre Peninsula (EP).

One issue Mount Cooper farmers identified as an issue was the establishment of self-regenerating medic pastures into heavy stubble residues. The trial reported here was designed to compare medic establishment and production, with different management strategies imposed on the previous crop stubble residues.

The GRDC project ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble - upper Eyre Peninsula’ aims to produce sustainable management guidelines to control pests, weeds and diseases while retaining stubble to maintain or improve soil health, and reduce exposure to wind erosion. The major outcome to be achieved is increased knowledge and skills allowing farmers and advisers to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems on upper Eyre Peninsula (EP).

The Minnipa Agricultural Centre S3S pasture trial was established in 2013 to assess the impact of a two year medic pasture break on barley grass. The trial had different grass weed management and tillage treatments imposed in 2013 and 2014. The trials were sown with wheat in 2015 and 2016, and allowed to regenerate with medic pasture in 2017.

To investigate the effect of fallow management treatments (stubble management and crop nutrition) on canola establishment, crop vigour grain yield in retained stubble systems in the high rainfall zone in the South-East of South Australia.

The GRDC project ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble - upper Eyre Peninsula’ aims to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems on upper Eyre Peninsula (EP). One of the barriers to retaining stubble is the perceived reduction in pre-emergent herbicide effectiveness (efficacy) in stubbles. This component of the project is testing whether various stubble management activities impact on herbicide efficacy.

Weed control in stubble retained systems can be compromised when stubbles and other plant residues intercept the herbicide and prevent it from reaching the desired target, or the herbicide is tightly bound to organic matter. Reduced herbicide efficacy in the presence of higher stubble loads is a particular issue for pre-emergence herbicides. Current farming practices have also changed weed behavior; eg prolonged dormancy in barley grass has been confirmed in many paddocks on Minnipa Agricultural Centre (MAC). As a part of the stubble project this trial was undertaken to assess herbicide efficacy in different stubble management systems.

This article reports on the results of the third and final year of the trial. See EPFS Summaries 2015 and 2016 for previous trial reports.

The GRDC project ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble - upper Eyre Peninsula’ aims to produce sustainable management guidelines to control pests, weeds and diseases while retaining stubble to maintain or improve soil health, and reduce exposure to wind erosion. The major outcome to be achieved is increased knowledge and skills allowing farmers and advisers to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems on upper Eyre Peninsula (EP).

The Minnipa Agricultural Centre (MAC) S7 stubble retention trial was established to maintain or improve crop production through applying alternative weed, disease and pest control options in pasture wheat rotations in the presence of crop residues. The trial was established in 2013 with wheat and different stubble treatments imposed at harvest annually. It was sown either inter row or on row in 2014-17 to determine the impacts of stubble management on crop production, weeds, disease and pests in low rainfall farming systems.

To investigate improvements for pre-emergent herbicide spray coverage in stubble retention systems.

Research on the mainland has shown that sowing lentils in the inter-row in wheat stubble encourages the plant to grow taller in pursuit of sunlight, enabling easier harvest for what is normally a short crop. Although broad beans can be a tall crop, the bottom pods contain the largest beans as these set the earliest and thus have the longest time to fill. However, in many cases these large seeded pods are too close to the ground for the harvester to pick up and yet it’s these big beans that are worth the most.

Like the lentil story above, local farmers are curious as to whether the height of the previous year’s wheat stubble may influence the distance from the ground of the first pod. There was also contemplation as to whether the stubble height had an effect on disease incidence in the bean crop.

To establish the nitrogen mineralised from a faba bean stubble

The demonstrate the effects of increasing N fertiliser rates on harvest index and stubble N%.

To determine the nutrient loss from stubbles of various crop types following summer rainfall.

To investigate the dynamics of N in stubble-retained systems. 

To determine if differences in early crop growth and development of crops under different stubble management strategies was due to differences in early-season nitrogen (N) supply.

The project seeks to:

• investigate, demonstrate and extend cultural practices that will assist growers to adopt no-till stubble retention (NTSR) in medium and higher-rainfall environments;
• build on findings from the previous Riverine Plains Inc. Water Use Efficiency (WUE) project; and
• extend the frontier of agronomic knowledge for crops grown in NTSR systems.

To determine the amount and availability of N from wheat stubble under varying stubble management practices over three cropping seasons.

To investigate the impact that stubble treatments (burning, cultivation, harrowed/flattened or standing stubble) imposed towards the end of the fallow have on the yield of winter crops.

To test the impact of sheep grazing no-till and zero-till farming systems on soil conditions and crop yields.

The aim of this work was to better understand the impact of stubble management on in-canopy temperatures and the associated risk of frost in cropping environments with high yields and high stubble loads.

To improve soil carbon through the incorporation of cereal stubbles with no impact on the subsequent canola crop.

The GRDC project ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble - upper Eyre Peninsula’ aims to produce sustainable management guidelines to control pests, weeds and diseases while retaining stubble to maintain or improve soil health, and reduce exposure to wind erosion. The major outcome to be achieved is increased knowledge and skills allowing farmers and advisers to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems on upper Eyre Peninsula (EP).

The Minnipa Agricultural Centre S3S pasture trial was established in 2013 to assess barley grass weed management with a two year medic pasture break. The trial had different grass weed management and tillage treatments imposed in 2013 and in 2014. The trial was then sown with wheat in 2015 and 2016.

The GRDC ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble’ projects on upper and lower Eyre Peninsula (EP) aim to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems. Grass weed management is one of the key issues of current cropping systems with annual ryegrass and barley grass being of most importance on lower EP (LEP) and upper EP (UEP) respectively. Herbicides continue to be the main strategy for weed control, and on LEP the intensification of cropping rotations and the decrease in livestock from farming systems has resulted in even further pressure on herbicides, resulting in the accelerated development of herbicide resistance in ryegrass.

An integrated approach to weed management (IWM) is required to slow the development of herbicide resistance and improve the sustainability of our farming systems. IWM aims to lower the weed seed bank with the use of herbicides as well as non-chemical techniques such as cultivation, higher sowing rates, and harvest weed seed management such as burning stubble, narrow windrow and chaff cart dumps. Demonstration paddocks were monitored to assess grass weed management strategies in current farming systems. This information will be used to improve the Ryegrass Integrated Management (RIM) model for EP systems, and potentially produce other grass weed management models (barley grass).

The GRDC project ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble - upper Eyre Peninsula’ aims to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems on upper Eyre Peninsula (EP). Weed control in stubble retained systems can be compromised when stubbles and organic residues intercept the herbicide and prevent it from reaching the desired target, or the herbicide is tightly bound to organic matter. Reduced herbicide efficacy in the presence of higher stubble loads is a particular issue for pre-emergence herbicides. Current farming practices have also changed weed dormancy in barley grass genotypes in many paddocks on Minnipa Agricultural Centre (MAC).

As a part of the stubble project this trial was undertaken to assess herbicide efficacy (effectiveness) in different stubble management systems. To understand how herbicides perform it is important to know the properties of the herbicide, the soil type and how the herbicide is broken down in the environment. The availability of a herbicide is an interaction between the solubility of a herbicide, how tightly it is bound to soil particles and organic matter, soil structure, cation exchange capacity and pH, herbicide volatility, soil water content and the rate of herbicide applied (EPFS Summary 2015, p132).

This article reports on the results of the second year of the trial, with a third year of the trial to be conducted in 2017.

To analyse the data collected over eight seasons and see if a correlation can be found in the SouthEast environment of South Australia between grain yield and harvest residue.

The GRDC project ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble - upper Eyre Peninsula’ aims to produce sustainable management guidelines to control pests, weeds and diseases while retaining stubble to maintain or improve soil health, and reduce exposure to wind erosion. The major outcome to be achieved is increased knowledge and skills allowing farmers and advisers to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems on upper Eyre Peninsula (EP).

The Minnipa Agricultural Centre (MAC) S7 stubble retention trial was established to determine if we could maintain or improve crop production through applying alternative weed, disease and pest control options in pasture wheat rotations in the presence of crop residues. The trial was established in 2013 with wheat and different stubble treatments imposed at harvest annually. It was sown either inter row or on row each season to determine the impacts of stubble management on crop production, weeds, disease and pests in low rainfall farming systems.

To examine two main management options to deal with high stubble loads (≥5t/ha) in 2017, and incorporates many of the main findings from the stubble initiative to date.

To evaluate the impact of cereal stubble height on fallow water efficiency.

To develope regional guidelines and recommendations that assist growers and advisors to consistently retain stubbles profitably.

To investigate the influence of stubble management and rate on the duration, severity and frost damage in frost prone parts of the landscape in the Mallee and Wimmera regions.

To explore the issues that impact on the profitability of retaining stubbles across a range of environments in southern Australia with the aim of developing regional guidelines and recommendations that assist growers and advisors to consistently retain stubbles profitably.

To determine the effect of stubble type (wheat, peas and canola) and load (from Decile 2, 5 and 8
seasons) on subsequent soil and crop nutrition.

To determine if differences in early crop growth and development of crops under different stubble management strategies was due to differences in early-season nitrogen (N) supply.

The GRDC ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble - upper Eyre Peninsula’ project aims to improve farm profitability while retaining stubble in farming systems on upper Eyre Peninsula (EP). Weed control in stubble retained systems can be compromised where herbicide efficacy is limited due to higher stubble loads, especially for preemergent herbicides. Current farming practices have also changed weed  behavior with later germinating barley grass genotypes now present in many paddocks on the Minnipa Agricultural Centre (MAC) (B Fleet, EPFS Summary 2011). Several MAC farm demonstrations  were undertaken in 2014 to address barley grass weed issues including later germinating types and barley grass resistance to Group A herbicides. An integrated approach to weed management aimed at lowering the weed seed bank can make use of diverse techniques such as cultivation, stubble burning, in-crop competition using higher sowing rates and possibly row orientation. The weed seed bank can be reduced within the break phase by hay making, or green or brown manuring. Other techniques used effectively in WA on ryegrass and wild  radish have been narrow windrows and chaff carts. However there is limited information on the effectiveness of these tactics on barley grass in part because it is believed that most seed is shed well before harvest, limiting control. In 2015 the monitoring of farm paddock demonstrations in low rainfall farming systems to  assess control methods for grass weeds, mainly targeting barley grass, were undertaken by;
• Monitoring of narrow windrows in MAC paddocks N1 and N6W, and Bruce Heddle’s paddock CE42 (windrows and chaff dumps).
• Spray topping after oat and vetch hay (MAC paddock S4) using both crop competition (high seeding rate) followed by spray topping after the hay cut.

To assess the efficacy of foliar, on-seed and on-fertiliser commercially available fungicides on blackleg control in retained stubble systems. 

To answer the question 'Does stubble height matter?'