Research
SA Drought Hub Activities 2022: Soil cover to retain water
Summary Demonstration sites to be established in low rainfall farming systems to determine: 1. Can we measure increased stored soil water in strip/disc vs conventional no-till knife point systems? 2. Are there other measurable benefits to the farming system such as soil cover, nutrition, weeds, disease, yield, soil health measures? 3. Are there impacts on…
SA Drought Hub Activities 2022: Best Practice Early Sowing Opportunities
Summary Demonstration sites to be established in low rainfall farming systems to: 1. Demonstrate practices to reduce fertiliser toxicity and increase plant establishment in early sowing situations. 2. Determine if we can increase the seeding opportunities and plant establishment using new long coleoptile wheat varieties or seed priming? 3. Determine if there are other measurable…
Soil extension support for extreme weather recovery areas of Eastern Eyre Peninsula
Summary Farmers affected by the extreme weather events were invited to express their interest in accessing technical support, soil testing and extension activities with a focus on production outcomes. Support was provided on a ‘first in first served’ basis, until the funds were fully allocated. The funding allows for approximately farm soil tests, technical support…
Eastern Eyre Soil Management Opportunities
Summary Increase soil cover of bare soils over 20/21 summer. Gain increased understanding of summer crops/other activities to affect soil surface cover, erosion potential and plant growth. Overcome physical and chemical constraints to root growth. Measure impact on the following winter crop. Gain increased understanding of suitable cover crop species for Eastern EP. Gain increased…
Promoting best-practice feedbase management to deliver improved drought resilience in low to medium rainfall regions through on-farm demonstrations and case studies
Summary This consortium project will demonstrate the application of best practice pasture management options to deliver enhanced drought resilience. Natural capital will be increased by 1) Extending the pasture growing season. 2) Increasing the ground cover of pastures to protect soils. This will be achieved by using better-adapted pasture species and mixtures and by implementing…
Better summer weed management decisions in Southern and Western Australia
Summary The summer weed app, created to assist with summer weed management decisions under GRDC project DAW00257, will be calibrated using field trials and user tested to estimate economic returns from controlling summer weed populations.
Robust ground cover to enable resilient low rainfall mixed farms
Summary This project will demonstrate, evaluate and communicate farming innovations that are not widely adopted by low rainfall farmers but have been proven in other regions or are close to market. Adoption will build resilient groundcover to protect the natural capital of the 10+ million hectare low rainfall mixed farming region of the Mallee and…
Building drought resilience with landscape scale remediation of saline land
Summary This project will demonstrate farmer ready management practices that break the cycle of saline land degradation exacerbated by very dry or drought conditions. Two key drivers of soil salinity will be addressed – dry saline land and Mallee seeps that cause lost production in low rainfall broad acre mixed farming landscapes.
RiskWi$e: National Risk Management Initiative – Action Research Groups Eyre Peninsula
Summary RiskWi$e: the National Risk Management Initiative (NRMI) is a GRDC initiative extending over five years that aims to understand and improve risk-reward outcomes for Australian grain growers through participatory action research (PAR). Explicitly the NRMI aims to: 1. develop an improved understanding of the risk-reward relationships for important on-farm management practices and decisions, 2….
Enterprise choice and sequence strategies that drive sustainable and profitable southern Australian farming systems
Southern Farming Systems Project Edillilie Site – Lower Eyre Peninsula Farm profitability can be improved by identifying the factors that drive profit and adopting management that optimises returns and mitigates risks. Growers are under mounting pressure to maintain profitability due to constraints such as input costs, herbicide resistance, declining soil fertility, increasing soil-borne pathogens and…