A TRIAL being conducted in the Albany port zone is implementing different methods to overcome non-wetting soil types in the hope of increasing grower knowledge of the diagnostic and amelioration options.
The project has been funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation, while the trial itself is being conducted by Southern Dirt, which has also subcontracted to Stirlings to Coast.
The trial started last year at Darkan, Tambellup and Kendenup, while a fourth site was added at Tenterden this year, which is the final year of the project.
The Tenterden site will continue next year to measure the second-year effects.
As part of the trials, different non-wetting management options are being tested including steel-based amelioration methods, such as deep-ripping, wetting agents, seed coating and claying.
Southern Dirt project manager Sheridan Kowald said they had applied different amelioration methods with different wetting agents, with the results being monitored over two years.
"Last year all our different methods were applied at time of sowing, while this year no wetters were applied to the trial site," Ms Kowald said.
"For example, at our Darkan trial site, we had wetter going down on one side at different rates, while the other side had the same wetters but the soil had been ripped.
"This year, we haven't put down any wetters, so we've left it out to see if there is a second-year effect from what we did last year in terms of yield or plant count."
The results from last year at the Darkan site showed that seeding depth may be an issue in newly ripped soils.
"Normally you would rip in January or February and seed in the normal period, whereas one of our trials we ripped the day before we seeded," Ms Kowald said.
"We found that could be an issue as the newly ripped soils leave the soil uneven which can impact on crop establishment."
At the Kendenup trial, SE 14 wetter was applied directly to the seed before seeding.
Ms Kowald said generally poor crop establishment of non-wetting soil occurred when the crops were dry sown, so they wanted to see if applying wetter directly on the seed had an impact.
"It didn't really have much of an effect, coating seed with wetter prior to seeding did not increase grain yield in this trial," she said.
"Farmers don't really have a lot to lose by adding wetter directly to the seed, as the cost in miniscule, so if they have the confidence to do so, the potential is there.
"Even though the trial didn't show any outstanding results, for how much it's going to cost it's worth giving it a go."
In terms of the deep-ripping results, at two out of the three sites, the ripping outperformed the situations where wetter was used on the soil alone.
Ms Kowald said in general wetters used in conjunction with the ripping could affect non-wetting soils in some instances, more so than using wetter alone.
"Overall, all the non-wetting soil techniques that we used produced higher yield results, in comparison to our control.
"It will be dependent on how the results go this year, but if we can see the second year effects are doing better than the control, then we really can start saying it's working."
