How to translate text using browser tools
28 April 2015 Long-term cropping system studies support intensive and responsive cropping systems in the low-rainfall Australian Mallee
A. M. Whitbread, C. W. Davoren, V. V. S. R. Gupta, R. Llewellyn, D. Roget
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Continuous-cropping systems based on no-till and crop residue retention have been widely adopted across the low-rainfall cereal belt in southern Australia in the last decade to manage climate risk and wind erosion. This paper reports on two long-term field experiments that were established in the late 1990s on texturally different soil types at a time of uncertainty about the profitability of continuous-cropping rotations in low-rainfall environments. Continuous-cereal systems significantly outyielded the traditional pasture–wheat systems in five of the 11 seasons at Waikerie (light-textured soil), resulting in a cumulative gross margin of AU$1600 ha–1 after the initial eight seasons, almost double that of the other treatments. All rotation systems at Kerribee (loam-textured soil) performed poorly, with only the 2003 season producing yields close to 3 t ha–1 and no profit achieved in the years 2004–08. For low-rainfall environments, the success of a higher input cropping system largely depends on the ability to offset the losses in poor seasons by capturing greater benefits from good seasons; therefore, strategies to manage climatic risk are paramount. Fallow efficiency, or the efficiency with which rainfall was stored during the period between crops, averaged 17% at Kerribee and 30% at Waikerie, also indicating that soil texture strongly influences soil evaporation. A ‘responsive’ strategy of continuous cereal with the occasional, high-value ‘break crop’ when seasonal conditions are optimal is considered superior to fixed or pasture–fallow rotations for controlling grass, disease or nutritional issues.

© CSIRO 2015
A. M. Whitbread, C. W. Davoren, V. V. S. R. Gupta, R. Llewellyn, and D. Roget "Long-term cropping system studies support intensive and responsive cropping systems in the low-rainfall Australian Mallee," Crop and Pasture Science 66(6), 553-565, (28 April 2015). https://doi.org/10.1071/CP14136
Received: 11 May 2014; Accepted: 1 November 2014; Published: 28 April 2015
KEYWORDS
climate variability
continuous cropping
crop modelling
low rainfall cropping
risk management
rotations
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top