MORE than 170 farmers came to Birchip Cropping Group’s trials review day to discuss drawcard topics such as cereal diseases, pulse variety and disease management, crop nutrition, vetch and barley agronomy as well as farming without glyphosate.
Farmers were keen to develop nitrogen management strategies for 2023 and see how the long-term N banking strategy of 125kg of N/ha/year had stacked up in a season like 2022 with high rainfall and urea prices.
Presenting the research, Dr James Hunt says over five years of the experiment N decisions, based on 50 per cent Yield Prophet or 125kg/ha N bank strategy, apply more N, 63-74kg N/ha, and were $128-179/ha per year more profitable than the district average N rate of 21 – 30kg N/ha.
“High urea prices in 2022 were offset by higher grain prices, and the most profitable treatments and N application rates remain the same over the last five years,” James added.
The presentation, backed by Dr Rob Norton’s crop nutrition discussion, confirmed the importance of prioritising soil tests to inform nutrition input decisions.
Traynor’s Lagoon farmer Andrew Jesse says BCG’s members only day is an event he marks in his calendar each year.
“It’s my favourite event, I’m not just saying that I really enjoy it, at the same time it also reinforces those things that sometimes you can get complacent about, such as nutrient depletion from previous year’s crops, fungicide pressure, the carry-over from last year,” he says.
“In previous years we have not being regimented in our fungicide strategy. This year we plan to be proactive and have a strategy in place early.”
A highlight of the day was industry crop canopy management expert Nick Poole, who spoke on the cereal disease panel, being formally recognised at the event for such work.
The director of Field Applied Research (FAR) Australia was presented with the prestigious Harm van Rees Award “for his expertise and commitment to extending best practice in canopy and fungicide management to farmers across the Wimmera and Mallee region”.
The award’s namesake, Harm van Rees, who attended the event, praised Nick’s work: “BCG is what it is because of the tremendous support of our local farmers, sponsors, funding agencies, staff and of course research supporters of which Nick has been a major contributor. Nick has been a part of BCG’s journey for a long, long time.”
“Nick has an intrinsic ability to clearly explain, demonstrate and cajole us to think about how crops grow and what the crop needs to optimise its yield potential. Nick is known for his quiet, measured speech, ensuring his audience hangs on every word!”
In accepting the award, Nick said: “I’ve always enjoyed working with farming systems groups – it’s such a fantastic way to get the message across to a large number of people.
“BCG is such a welcoming organisation of which I feel proud to have worked with and continue to work with. Thank you to all involved.”
