In 2016, NACC’s Sustainable Agriculture Team, through the Farm Demonstration Grants, provided funding to Wayne Pluske of Equii to conduct a trial to investigate a novel approach to determine the optimum in-season Nitrogen rates. The trial was hosted by Eradu farmer Peter Freeman on yellow sandplain country in the challenging 2017 growing season.
Wayne has successfully completed his trial work and produced a report outlining his findings. The report focuses on testing varying nitrogen rates based on in-season decisions over three separate yield zones totalling 230 hectares in 2017. Each replicate had an optimum nitrogen rate calculated and applied based on 2017’s to-date rainfall and previous years yield maps and rainfall records. Wayne hopes that varying nitrogen rates at a finer scale across farms growers can increase return on investment and reduce the negative impacts of overuse of nitrogen.
To gain an insight into the findings or to get a better understanding of the project please check out Wayne’s report.
This demonstration has been supported by the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program