By March 2025, growers have the knowledge and understanding of how different stubble architectures contribute value to their farming system, understand the differing costs involved, can acknowledge the risk/reward profile and use this knowledge to apply the step changes required for profitability. 

The last few seasons have continued to provide early seeding opportunities, particularly in 2021 off the back of cyclone Seroja, and therefore growers want to better understand the risk and reward of going early.

The Liebe Group propose to undertake a locally relevant small plot demonstration that will investigate six different Round Up Ready canola varieties seeded at start of April. This will also be accompanied by three grower case studies to understand the decision-making process of time sowing and varietal choice.

Grain losses at harvest directly impact the amount of grain captured and sold at harvest. This investment will quantify the losses in each of the major grains crops in the Western Region and create a benchmark for losses, rather than relying on anecdotal evidence or farmer-collected data in investment analysis. The data captured will focus on the front and back losses, with an analysis to summarise the findings and help guide further investment in minimising harvest loss.

This project is designed to support land manager practice change that will deliver more sustainable, productive and profitable food, fibre and forestry business while protecting Australia's biodiversity; protecting and improving the condition of natural resources; and assisting Australia to meet its international obligations. 

Dryland salinity is a major cause of land degradation in WA, with widespread implications on rural infrastructure, water resources, biodiversity and productive land. Focusing on the eastern fringe of the Moore River Catchment, this project will investigate the resurgence of dryland salinity and the opportunity for a new generation of landholders to employ regenerative agricultural management options on-farm. A landscape-scale review will be undertaken in 2022 to develop a regional management plan. 

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Farmers in the Northern Agricultural Region (NAR) of WA are managing increasing climatic risks and are seeking new tools that can improve in-season crop management and planning decisions. To address this, the Liebe Group proposes to implement an integrated network of soil moisture probes and weather stations in the region. This project will act as a ‘pilot’ to test the technology in our region and provide an extension platform to engage growers to increase their awareness and knowledge about how this technology could add value to their businesses.

Diamondback moth has unpredictable population dynamics with its timing and distribution difficult to determine. DBM has the ability to reproduce very fast, hence demonstrating explosive outbreak potential as has been seen in WA in some years. In order to improve timely and effective decision support for growers to manage DBM in canola crops, surveillance is being conducted throughout the five WA port zones to determine the Brassica hosts which may be present during summer and autumn and assess whether these hosts are providing a DBM reservoir bridging between growing seasons.

Break crops are widely acknowledged as being necessary to manage the biological constraints that reduce cereal crop production. While break crops have traditionally been used as a single crop in rotation, the use of two break crops in sequence has been shown to greatly increase cereal crop production and profitability. This project will deliver innovation to growers by demonstrating a double break crop sequence of canola followed by chickpea or lentil that increases both the effectiveness and profitability of break crop phase.

Soil amelioration is a key part of farming systems in Western Australia to overcome soil limitations to crop production. The removal of soil constraints such as compaction and water repellence through strategic tillage practices generally leads to increases in crop production in successive years. One of the limitations that threatens the longevity of these benefits is that the soil can re-compact over time following amelioration, often leading to levels higher than before amelioration.

In the Western and Southern Regions, the propensity for cereal-dominant rotations and no-till has led to an increase in PredictaB detections of certain soilborne pathogens. In 2018, the main diseases detected in these regions were rhizoctonia root rot, crown rot, root lesion nematodes (RLN), and an increased risk of cereal cyst nematode (CCN) and take-all. In the Northern Region, while there are opportunities for diverse crop rotations, crown rot and RLN are still significant issues. Irrespective of the disease, any pathogen that affects the roots, ultimately limits the uptake of water and nutrients and is therefore an important contributor to the yield gap.

The objective of this project will be to critically assess the ability of modern data analytics to address farming system challenges and improve in-season decision making when faced with a variable climate. This will involve monitoring 14 paddocks that have been set up with modern soil moisture and weather monitoring technology and combining this with CSIRO technology and digital farm records to deliver decision making information to growers quickly and succinctly.

The project will use a farming systems approach to investigate three potential new methodologies for C sequestration and nitrous oxide mitigation using crop sequencing (including summer crops, cover crops and pastures), soil C amendments and soil amelioration.  These will be trialled in small to medium size plots in fully randomised designed experiments. The project aims to trial, measure and demonstrate crop sequencing and new technologies that can sequester organic carbon, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and improve soil fertility in crop production systems that have traditionally struggled to accumulate carbon.