ACCORDING to the provisional harvest results from a barley canopy management trial at Esperance, Rosalind grown with higher inputs of nitrogen, fungicide and plant growth regulators (PGR), produced significantly higher yields than other cultivar/management combinations.
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The trial was part of Field Applied Research (FAR) Australia's ongoing project - optimising high rainfall zone cropping for profit in the western and southern regions - and was sown at the Esperance Crop Technology Centre on April 16.
It was the first cereal after canola and the soil was sandplain over clay.
In the trial, RGT Planet was significantly lower yielding than Laperouse under lower input management, but yielded almost identically when grown under higher inputs.
Fungicide input looked to be the most influential input.
The result was identical to the 2021 season.
There was also a significant interaction between cultivar and management indicating that cultivars responded differently to the management strategies applied.
There was no advantage to growing short season winter barley, Urambie, despite the mid-April sowing date resulting in spring barley cultivars reaching growth stage 31 in mid to late June.
Importantly, the site is generally frost free and no frost was experienced during the season.
Grain yields resulting from management input correlated strongly to crop canopy dry matter at harvest.
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For the high input management, the mean harvest index was 48.1 per cent.
