Crop Updates 2011 - Cereals

This session covers eleven papers from different authors: OPENING, NEW CROP VARIETIES & DECISION SUPPORT Opening 1. Overview of the 2010 season, David Bowran, Director, Practice and Systems Innovation, Department of Agriculture and Food, 2. My experience in a drought as a farmer and consultant, Bill Crabtree, Morawa, Western Australia 3. Meeting the productivity and sustainability challenges to Australian agriculture until 2030, Peter Carberry, CSIRO Sustainable Agriculture Flagship New Crop Varieties 4. National Variety Trials (NTV) wheat variety performance – captivity vs broadacre, Peter Burgess, Kalyx Agriculture 5. WALAN2289 – a new lupin variety to replace Mandelup in the system, Bevan Buirchell, Department of Agriculture and Food 6. The strengths and pitfalls of different grades of new wheat varieties in Western Australia Ben Curtis, Sarah Ellis, Brenda Shackley, Christine Zaicou, Department of Agriculture and Food, 7. Yield performance of temperate and tropical rice varieties in the Ord River Irrigation Areas (ORIA) Siva Sivapalan, Penny Goldsmith and Gae Plunkett, Department of Agriculture and Food Decision Support 8. A new phenology model (DM) for wheat, Darshan Sharma, Mario D’Antuono, Brenda Shackley, Christine Zaicou, Ben Curtis, Department of Agriculture and Food 9. PeatFax Map and the Weed Seed Wizard: tools to help with crop protection, Art Diggle1, Peter Mangano1, Sally Peltzer1, Michael Renton2, Bill Macleod1, Fumie Horiuchi1, George Wyatt1 1Department of Agriculture and Food, 2University of Western Australia 10. Soil management calculator for predicting phosphorus losses under cropping systems in Western Australia, Geoff Anderson1, Richard Bell2, Ross Brennan1 and Wen Chen2, 1Department of Agriculture and Food, 2School of Environmental Science, Murdoch University 11. Tools to assist growers understand the impacts of management decisions in the high rainfall zone, Penny Riffkin, Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Hamilto

Integrating crop modelling and production economics to investigate multiple nutrient deficiencies and yield gaps

A method is described for integrating crop modelling and production economics to quantify optimum applications of multiple nutrients and yield gaps. The method is demonstrated for crop production in the high-rainfall zone of southern Australia. Data from a biophysical crop model were used to overcome the persistent problem of inadequate experimental data. The Mitscherlich function was expanded to accommodate four variable inputs – nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur – and the expansion path was used to determine the economic optimum application of all four nutrients. Modelling revealed the state-contingent yield potential and the extent to which unrealised yield could be explained by profit-maximising behaviour and riskaversion by growers. If growers and their advisors were guided by the methods described, they would be better equipped to assess crop nutrient demands and limitations, predict yield potential, additional profit and the risks associated with high input systems in a variable climate. If scientists were more aware of the extra profits and the risks involved (as well as the quantitative relationships between inputs and outputs) when thinking about what to produce and how to do so, they would be more circumspect about the net benefits to be obtained from closing yield gaps

Intercropping—Evaluating the Advantages to Broadacre Systems

Intercropping is considered by its advocates to be a sustainable, environmentally sound, and economically advantageous cropping system. Intercropping systems are complex, with non-uniform competition between the component species within the cropping cycle, typically leading to unequal relative yields making evaluation difficult. This paper is a review of the main existing metrics used in the scientific literature to assess intercropping systems. Their strengths and limitations are discussed. Robust metrics for characterising intercropping systems are proposed. A major limitation is that current metrics assume the same management level between intercropping and monocropping systems and do not consider differences in costs of production. Another drawback is that they assume the component crops in the mixture are of equal value. Moreover, in employing metrics, many studies have considered direct and private costs and benefits only, ignoring indirect and social costs and benefits of intercropping systems per se. Furthermore, production risk and growers’ risk preferences were often overlooked. In evaluating intercropping advantage using data from field trials, four metrics are recommended that collectively take into account all important differences in private costs and benefits between intercropping and monocropping systems, specifically the Land Equivalent Ratio, Yield Ratio, Value Ratio and Net Gross Margin

Crop Updates 2011 - Cereals

This session covers eleven papers from different authors: OPENING, NEW CROP VARIETIES & DECISION SUPPORT Opening 1. Overview of the 2010 season, David Bowran, Director, Practice and Systems Innovation, Department of Agriculture and Food, 2. My experience in a drought as a farmer and consultant, Bill Crabtree, Morawa, Western Australia 3. Meeting the productivity and sustainability challenges to Australian agriculture until 2030, Peter Carberry, CSIRO Sustainable Agriculture Flagship New Crop Varieties 4. National Variety Trials (NTV) wheat variety performance – captivity vs broadacre, Peter Burgess, Kalyx Agriculture 5. WALAN2289 – a new lupin variety to replace Mandelup in the system, Bevan Buirchell, Department of Agriculture and Food 6. The strengths and pitfalls of different grades of new wheat varieties in Western Australia Ben Curtis, Sarah Ellis, Brenda Shackley, Christine Zaicou, Department of Agriculture and Food, 7. Yield performance of temperate and tropical rice varieties in the Ord River Irrigation Areas (ORIA) Siva Sivapalan, Penny Goldsmith and Gae Plunkett, Department of Agriculture and Food Decision Support 8. A new phenology model (DM) for wheat, Darshan Sharma, Mario D’Antuono, Brenda Shackley, Christine Zaicou, Ben Curtis, Department of Agriculture and Food 9. PeatFax Map and the Weed Seed Wizard: tools to help with crop protection, Art Diggle1, Peter Mangano1, Sally Peltzer1, Michael Renton2, Bill Macleod1, Fumie Horiuchi1, George Wyatt1 1Department of Agriculture and Food, 2University of Western Australia 10. Soil management calculator for predicting phosphorus losses under cropping systems in Western Australia, Geoff Anderson1, Richard Bell2, Ross Brennan1 and Wen Chen2, 1Department of Agriculture and Food, 2School of Environmental Science, Murdoch University 11. Tools to assist growers understand the impacts of management decisions in the high rainfall zone, Penny Riffkin, Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Hamilto