Contributors:

Jackie Ouzman, Therese McBeath, Melissa Fraser, Masood Azeem, Rodrigo Da Silva, Jack Desbiolles, Chris Saunders, Mustafa Ucgul, Nigel Wilhelm, Michael Moodie, Tanja Morgan, Sam Trengove, Stuart Sherriff, Rachael Whitworth, Murray Unkovich, Rick Llewellyn, Lynne Macdonald.

About the app:

This interactive web application allows the users to interrogate and visualise sandy soil project trial yield results alongside site climate and soil constraint information. It is aimed at helping grain growers evaluate amelioration options in the context of their own soils and climate. The app also houses a series of fact sheets relating to soil constraint identification and machinery selection to support the user to view the most useful results and to identify the most suitable management options.

The aim of the Sandy Soils project is to boost crop yields by increasing crop water in underperforming sandy soils by improving the diagnosis and management of constraints. Crop water-use and yields on sandy soils are commonly limited by a range of soil constraints that reduce root growth. Constraints can include a compacted or hard-setting layer preventing root proliferation, a water-repellent surface layer causing poor crop establishment, soil pH issues (both acidity and alkalinity) and/or poor nutrient supply. The App draws upon a database of Sandy Soils project (Grains Research & Development Corporation project CSP00203) yield responses to practices to manage sandy soils in the Southern cropping region.

A range of trial experiments were established across the low to medium-rainfall environments of the southern grain growing region. The trials were established between 2014 and 2021 and included a range of deep ripping (30-60cm deep), spading, inclusion ripping and/or inversion ploughing approaches, with/without additional amendments (fertiliser, N-rich hay, chicken manure, clay). The App has results from 24 sites with 136 site . years of amelioration trial data and 1 site . year of seeder-strategy trial data. All trials were monitored for crop growth and yield.

The app has a number of pages:

‘What is my constraint’ This page outlines the 4 most common sandy soil constraints in the southern region. It provides a brief description of the constraints, how it presents in the paddock and how to best diagnose these constraints with links to GRDC factsheets. At the bottom of this page is a list of the 24 trial sites and their soil constraints severity rating. For each site, the most common constraints (Repellence, Nutrition, Acid and Strength) are scored between ‘no issue’, ‘moderate’ and ‘severe’. The user can identify sites that have similar constraints to what they have locally. Information on soil constraint severity helps direct the user to sites that may have a similar yield response.

‘Trial results’ This page reports on yield responses for the trial experiments at the 24 sites. The sites are mapped along with a pop-up detailing the soil constraint severity. Note that the actual farm location is not displayed rather the closest meteorological station location is used.

The trial results that are presented are filtered based on the drop-down directly below the map on the left of the screen. The ‘cumulative yields’ are plotted on the y-axis, and each colour in the column depicts a different year . The x-axis is the list of treatments for the site, note that the treatment names have been shortened and the longer treatment names can be viewed via a pdf accessed from a link directly below the site selection drop-down.

Directly below the plot is a table of cumulative yields and the results of a one-way ANOVA analysis and multiple comparisons of treatments by means of LSD and a grouping of treatments. The level by alpha is set at p= 0.1. The different letters in the grouping indicate which treatments are significantly different to one another, while the significant column indicates if the one-way ANOVA is significantly different. The analysis was performed in R studio® using the stats and agricolae packages.

The final table is ‘yield gain’ expressed as tonnes per hectare relative to the control treatment per site and year. This table also reports the crop grown and the decile season, which can assist in the interpretation of the results. The decile season is calculated using SILO - Australian climate data (https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/silo/point-data/) using the sum of growing season rainfall (April – October) and 25% of summer rainfall.

‘Management options’ This page has a matrix table that lists the soil constraints and the seeder strategies and amelioration options available for each constraint.

More information on management options is outlined for water repellence, acid, and high soil strength. via links that connect the user to GRDC fact sheets. These resources provide detailed information on each management option and their implementation options.

Acknowledgements:

This research has been enriched by preceding research trials, the significant contributions of growers and consultants across the Southern region, and the support of the GRDC. CSP00203 research and validation activities are a collaboration between the CSIRO, the University of South Australia, the SA state government through Primary Industries and Regions SA, Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc., Frontier Farming Systems, Trengove Consulting, AgGrow Agronomy, AirEP, and MacKillop Farm Management Group.

References:

The database can be accessed via the Data access portal

CSIRO data access portal

Murray Unkovich, Therese McBeath, Michael Moodie, Lynne M. Macdonald, High soil strength and cereal crop responses to deeper tillage on sandy soils in a semi-arid environment, Field Crops Research, Volume 291, 2023, 108792, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2022.108792

Licence:

Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 LicenceThis licence lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.