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Clarifying the value proposition for farmers when considering variable rate (VR) fertiliser application to improve uptake of variable rate technology.

This project will assist three growers to identify and address the gap between potential and actual grain yield for one paddock on their farm. Through the use of the Taranis platform and coupled with grower experience, 3 focus paddocks (one per farm) will be targeted that are underperforming for grain yield for the farm/region. Access to the Taranis platform will be provided as in-kind support for the project by Stratus Imaging where growers can look over their whole farm and see which paddocks are becoming increasingly variable during the growing season.  From this, the grower can select one paddock to do a more detailed drone imaging survey to assist in identifying the cause of the increased variability in the paddock.
Stratus Imaging will complete a more detailed image survey of up to 100 hectares of the paddocks at GS30. This will develop a heat map to highlight the impact of weeds, nitrogen status, insects, and any previous management activities on the growth of  the crop up until GS30. This imagery will be processed within 24 hours and returned to the grower for two purposes.
Firstly, the grower may identify any issues that can be immediately rectified through a change in seasonal land management practices, such as modifying mid and late season nitrogen applications, to increase the grain yield of their crop. WMG will develop capacity to assist growers to interpret the imagery presented in the Taranis system, with assistance from Stratus Imaging and external PA consultants (if required). The development of precision ag maps
Secondly, the identification of longer term issues such as patches of severe soil acidity, high weed populations, etc, will allow the grower to develop an action plan to address the yield gap on this paddock, and/or the rest of the farm for the coming years. WMG will work with the growers to collect ground truthing data via soil and plant sampling to better interpret the Taranis imagery. From this, the action plan will be developed to understand what needs to be completed in the coming years to reduce the yield gap on each farm.

This project uses new technology to overcome the barrier that stops a lot of growers from achieving the potential yield on their farm for a given year. The barrier is that the information is not available to make the decisions on, and most decisions are made by emotion or by using a very pragmatic lens to evaluate what to do next. This project will identify the factors, via in-season mapping, in the paddock that are impacting the crop as it is growing rather than assessing a range of maps post-harvest. This allows for real-time sampling and analysis of the crop to groundtruth the data being captured by drone.

 

Project date

27 May 2021-27 May 2022
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Principal investigator

Nathan Craig

Research organisations

West Midlands Group Incorporated

Project funded by

Multiple industries
Alternative protein Aquaculture Cereal grains Cross industry Essential oils Fruits Game Honey bees Nuts Other rural industries Pasture, fodder & feed Poultry Pulse grains

AgriFutures Australia

AgriFutures Australia proudly focuses on building a rich future for Australian agriculture. We live and work in the regions and …
  • Location

    Australia

  • Organisation type

    Research funding body

Focus areas

Industries

Sustainabilities

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