Andrew Earl runs on-farm trials at Mungundai in northern NSW to test zero-till, high-nutrition crops, and expanded rotations with cotton and sorghum. The Northern Farming Systems Initiative, backed by GRDC, helps growers gather scientific evidence for practices that boost yields and soil health while managing weeds and pests.
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Only one in every three grain growers in Australia's Northern region is maximising total farm yields. Recently Groundcover TV looked at the GRDC supported Northern Farming Systems initiative which is aimed at providing answers to the 2/3 of farmers who could benefit by modifying their farming system. And helping to provide those answers are progressive grain growers such as Andrew Earl from northern New South Wales.
My main interest in having the trials on farm is just to get some science behind the results. Like it's. You have farmer conversations and they tell you how well one variety's done above another, but you don't understand the exact science.
The Mungundai site is one of seven coordinated experimental sites across the region from which science backed outcomes will be generated.
The last time we've had a similar farming systems trial was probably 15 years ago. They had a really good site up at Nindy Gully and that really changed the district to zero till. It changed the farming practice completely. That was a big leap and I sort of hope we can get something similar from this trial.
Retaining soil moisture through zero till answers 1 of the challenges of farming in a low rainfall environment. There's also declining soil health to deal with, especially as grubbers work to produce higher farm yields. So soil nutrition through crop rotation is a focus for this research project.
Part of the farming systems trial is to look at the economics of very high fertility or high nutrition crops as opposed to the tradition where we don't put a lot of nitrogen in the system.
Hearing the message is only part of the story. The making a change on farm is what sets growers such as Andrew Earl apart from the rest. And it's not only crop nutrition that has changed on his property.
The work that's been recently done by NGA Northern Grower alliance in helping us to control flea bone, feathertop rhodes grass has basically kept us viable and kept us with zero tills.
The Northern Grower alliance is the GRDC funded grower solutions group for northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland. NGA identifies and prioritises work on constraints to local grain production. In the same way, the Northern Farming Systems Initiative will provide outcomes for local adoption and regional application.
The greatest challenges at the moment for us, and that's why we're really interested in getting the systems trial out here, is we're headed down group A, blackout resistance and heavy nematode numbers at 1,000 miles an hour because we're stuck in a rotation with wheat, chickpeas, barley, wheat, wheat, chickpeas, wheat, wheat, chickpeas and we really need a different system.
Being a low rainfall, predominantly winter cropping region, options for crop rotation are limited. However, to reduce reliance on chemicals, break disease cycles and add diversity to the mix, looking at cropping options is imperative to improving the farming system here in Mangandai. Andrew Earl's experience shows it can be done. In the last five years he successfully produced two crops of dryland cotton and he's looking to sorghum to further extend his farming system.
Still struggle with sorghum but I just look not far away and they're doing it successfully. So I really think we need to look at row spacings and time of planting to see if we can make it in this region.
The Northern Farming Systems Initiative and field days like this one is give growers a chance to see local triwork progressing, add input and talk directly with innovative and progressive growers who are optimising total farm output.
GRDC have been wonderful in basically addressing the short, medium, long term research issues for us. We've got some brilliant new varieties which have improved our yields. The NGA are certainly dealing with the shorter term issues exceptionally well and now the Farming system trials addressing the sort of medium term and longer term rotation issues.
For more information on the Northern Farming Systems Initiative, search online at. The GRDC and its Northern Grower Solutions Group NGA.
