Improving Farm Water Use Efficiency on KI and in the South East of SA

Farmers in both the South East of Sa and Kangaroo Island have increased the level of cropping over the past 10 years.

In both areas, high grain yields have been achieved when good agroonomy and weather conditions have coincided.  In trials at Conmurra in the South East in 2005, yields of up to 10 tonne/ha of wheat were achieved but barley yields were of the order of 5 tonne/ha due to disease. Similarly, in years with good spring rainfall, canola yields have reached 4 tonne/ha.

In these best cases, water use efficiency (WUE) based on the French Schulz model has been relatively high; however, WUE has often been only 10 -12 kg/ha/mm in many crops and trials in other years.  High WUE in the HRZ is linked to growers abilities to maximise their yield potential while minimizing constraints suck as water logging, disease and nutrition (includes factors such as conapy management).

In many areas of the South East ans to a lesser extent on Kangaroo Isalnd, the amount of plant available water has not yet been determined so models such as APSIM can not be used to estimate potential yield.  Therefore this project aims to combine plant available water measurements (PAW) made in the CSIRO/BCG project "training soil water" and other measurements of PAW from other sources in both the South East and on Kangaroo Island with agronomic trials and evaluation of appropriate varieties for the high rainfall zone to increase WUE and to extend this information to farmers via extension networks already established throughout the region.

Project commenced:  July 2008

Project to be completed:  June 2013

Project Supervisor:  Trent Potter, Senior Research Officer with SARDI.