Yield gap insight
Researchers have used a seminar in Horsham to present findings from a fouryear study into yield constraints to wheat grown in western Victoria.
A seminar at Horsham’s Grains Innovation Park explored how genetics, management and environment influenced water use efficiency and wheat yields.
The project measured key crop, soil, disease and grower-management practices from more than 130 paddocks in the Wimmera, Mallee and western Victoria’s high rain.
This data has provided insight into the key drivers of water-use efficiency in wheat in western Victoria.
Agriculture Victoria senior scientist Roger Armstrong said information from the study could provide growers with an opportunity to benchmark practices and yields against the industry as a whole.
“Growing a crop has always been a complex activity,” he said.
“Growers need to simultaneously take into account a vast range of factors including cultivar, soil properties, disease, weeds and management practices, while also considering the climate and market variability.
“This project has attempted to answer questions around what has the major influence over water use efficiency – genetics, management or environment?”
Professor Armstrong said farmers and researchers had continued to debate the relative importance that different environmental and management factors had on grain yields, but there had been little objective assessment of these factors when considered as a whole, especially in ‘real-world’ paddocks.
“Most importantly, the project identifies the key factors that growers and their advisers should focus on when aiming to maximise potential wheat yields in contemporary systems,” he said.
This project was part of an Agriculture Victoria Research and Grains Research and Development Corporation co-funded program, ‘Closing the gap: causes, solutions and tools for managing yield constraints’.