The NSW Government has agreed to establish a steering committee to look at further solutions for the Department of Primary Industries’ Condobolin research station.

Designing a simple on-farm phosphorous (P) rate trial in winter cereals Ken Motley and Colin McMaster, NSW DPI Katrina McDougall, CWFS Andrew Rice, WHK Ivey High phosphorous (P) fertiliser prices are placing pressure on farmers to closely review their P fertiliser application rates.  Considerable detailed research has been done by NSW DPI and CWFS on P fertiliser rates in wheat, in particular calibrating soil tests such as the Colwell test to crop responses in Central West NSW.  This research has shown that soil P levels and yield potentials are the key criteria by which P fertiliser rates are best calculated.  Publications such as the NSW DPI Agfact “Phosphorous nutrition of winter crops” (available on the internet www.dpi.nsw.gov.au) are a good start to begin to understand the subject On-farm broad scale trials are a useful way of checking if your P fertiliser rates are adequate in your cropping system.  They can also be used to evaluate alternative P fertilisers.  The advent of Precision Agriculture (PA) utilising GPS technology such as guidance and yield mapping is very useful for conducting these types of broad scale on farm trials. However, PA is not essential and the trial can still be done using weigh bins at harvest.  This publication sets out to describe some of the key principles needed to conduct simple on-farm P trials that are free of bias.  CWFS also has available a sister publication for suggestions on how to evaluate biological P fertilisers in on-farm trials. Click to download the full PDF (62KB), Designing a simple on-farm phosphorous (P) rate trial in winter cereals.

'Salvaging crops for fodder, grain or grazing - costs and income calculator' was developed by NSW DPI district agronomists to help producers make decisions on salvaging crops during drought. The spreadsheet calculates the cost of baling crops for hay or silage and of taking crops through to harvest.

Users input data for their own situation to assess the cost of each option. By knowing costs and having an idea of the product’s potential value, the best economic outcomes can be worked through more clearly.

It is important that producers check chemical withholding periods before either cutting crops for hay, or grazing the crops.

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/field/field-crops/crop-salvage-calculator

Australian Sandalwood - Aaron Edmonds

The single biggest worry in the world of agricultural production is that our farming systems have evolved with the assumption that oil will always be cheap. Vast amounts of energy are required to produce nitrogenous fertiliser and pesticides. It takes the energy from roughly one litre of oil to produce one kilogram of urea.

One must therefore appreciate that rises in the cost of energy will lead directly to inflationary pressures on the price of nitrogenous fertilisers.

This will impact tremendously on the profitability of nitrogen-hungry crops such as wheat and canola. Our most profitable crops are in danger of becoming our least profitable. The three major areas in which agriculture has unacceptable exposure to rising oil prices are in fertilisers, herbicides/pesticides and diesel.

The challenge and opportunity for agriculture is to manage all three areas.

Australian sandalwood is a unique native tree crop highly adapted to Australian conditions. The tree produces nuts that are high in oil (60 percent) and protein (18 percent) with the kernel oil being largely the healthy monounsaturated oil (55 percent). It requires no nitrogen fertiliser and

has the potential to become an important, valuable oilseed.

Trials for this dryland tree crop are under way at our property east of Calingiri in the WA wheatbelt. We have been selecting, from bought seed, for large seeds and now have varieties whose nuts are as big as a 20-cent piece. Four-year-old trees are yielding well in excess of 1kg of nuts per tree, with this yield set to increase as the trees grow.

For more information go to the Australia Nuts Website