Pushing yield envelope on South Coast

Precision Agronomics Australia (PAA) director Quenten Knight thinks so.

He is an enthusiastic advocate of thinking outside the square and was one of the early promoters of precision agriculture almost 20 years ago when guidance systems were being developed in Australia.

Data collection soon followed and in more recent years there has been a higher adoption of EM (electro-magnetic imaging) and radiometrics as tools to achieve more uniform cropping yields at lower cost.

According to Quenten, who employees two full-time agronomists while facilitating information flow and supporting several other agronomists throughout the Wheatbelt, PAA is involved with farmers employing EM and radiometrics for variable rate applications totalling between 40,000 and 50,000 hectares a year.

He sees a light at the end of the tunnel as Western Australia’s so-called poisonous sands are being ameliorated into more friable soils, setting up opportunities for more sustainable and profitable cropping systems.

“For a long time the main focus of precision ag has primarily been about input savings that can be generated,” Quenten said.

“That led to increased focus on variable rate technology for more selective management on inputs.

“Now we’re able to validate a lot more production gains by adopting variable rate applications on a zonal basis using spatial data.

“It means we can address the agronomics in more detail and generally the financial impact is greater, because of production gains.”

Trial work has improved EM and radiometric techniques leading to increased adoption across whole farms and the ripple effect has improved soils for longer term sustainable production.

The other ripple effect is that farm valuations now take into account soil improvements rather than just rainfall figures.

Throughout the South Coast, Quenten is seeing big production differentials between farms adopting what might be called best practice and those sticking with so-called district practice.

The hope one day is that district practice becomes best practice.

Quenten is enthusiastic that while many sandy soils throughout the South Coast present challenges, there are also soils that are very productive.

Through EM and radiometrics, it is becoming evident that poor-producing areas are improving along with highly productive areas, which had been “mined” and were in decline.

It is important to understand that EM and radiometrics are just tools with the key being the analysis of gained data.

High productive areas, for example, need to be “cared for” with required inputs to balance what has been taken out by crops.

In this context Quenten sees an ability to perhaps “push” these areas to elevate the overall farm yield average.

And this is where the question of yield potential comes in.

“There’s an international project to push for the production of 20 tonnes a hectare wheat crops by 2020,” he said.

“That’s the end goal which is pretty ambitious, although the world record at the moment is about 16.79t, set in New Zealand.

“We won’t get that throughout the South Coast but we could aim for 10t/ha because we’re seeing evidence of those sorts of yields now.

“What is needed to achieve these hyper-yielding crops is an agronomic package and that will involve growing longer-season wheats.

“Generally there’s an opportunity to sow along the South Coast in March but we don’t have the varieties to do this yet.

“Some of our varieties would run up to head too quickly if we planted them in March.

“So we’re looking towards winter-types developed in Australia and internationally.”

The spectre of such a change immediately raises diseases issues which Quenten is aware of.

“Part of the agronomic package that needs to be developed will incorporate ways to counter fungal diseases, insects and plant growth regulators to prevent lodging,” he said.

“Getting the package right is crucial but so is improving the soils and there is potential to lift production when you consider that today we are witnessing 4.5-5t/ha farm averages in Esperance.

“I believe that can be replicated throughout the South Coast high rainfall zone from east of Esperance and into the Albany port zone, so it’s a big area we are talking about.”

Part of the proof of the pudding is local trial work with Warakirri farm, cropping at Condingup, east of Esperance.

“It started last year after a lot of soil amelioration work had been done including claying, spading, drainage and deep ripping,” he said.

“We are involved in long season wheat trials in a canola/wheat/barley rotation and down the track we are working on introducing a legume component.

“The point is as you improve soils it opens up a lot more avenues to start pushing a system and EM and radiometrics will be an integral part of that.”

Quenten sees EM and radiometrics being a great asset in developing hyper-yielding cereals because of the ability to identify all soil type issues.

“We have the capability of developing deep ripping maps, identifying areas that need claying or delving and variable rate nutrient application maps such as potassium maps.

“There are a whole multitude of uses for this technology and we can develop a five year plan that can prioritise those jobs and to evaluate what will give the bigger return on investment.

“Having done that, then we can make plans for investment, such as machinery.

“It could be a five or 10-year plan but the important thing is it allows you to prioritise strategies.”

Quenten is quick to acknowledge PAA is not the only player in WA assessing crop yield potentials.

But it is certainly a keen promoter.