Riverine Plains hosted Hyper Yielding Crops project meetings at Brocklesby and Rutherglen on Tuesday 23 February, 2021. Results from the Hyper Yielding Crops On-farm Focus Trials, as well as the results from the Hyper Yielding Crops technology centre at Wallendbeen were discussed, with presentations by Nick Poole and Tom Price (FAR Australia), Jon Midwood (TechCrop) and Kate Coffey (Riverine Plains).

More detailed results and information from the Hyper Yielding Crops field day are available by downloading the following presentations NSW HYC Grower meeting 23 Feb 2021 and 210223_HYC RP Innovation Groups

Key points from the On-farm Focus trials were;

Nitrogen trial, Howlong (Accroc wheat)

• There were clear differences between the northern and southern parts of the paddock, based on the old fence line. The differences could be paddock history, soil type or past management or all of the above.
• In the northern half of the paddock, there was a negative yield response to extra 100kg/ha urea (46kg N/ha) at GS30 in the strip trial. Yield decreased by 0.45t/ha and gross margin loss was $147/ha.
• On the southern half of the paddock, the addition of 200kg/ha urea (92kgN/ha) at GS30 produced an extra 0.55t/ha, compared to the Nil urea at GS30 strip to the south. This gave break-even situation.
• Grain protein (N content of the grain) of the highest yielding strip was only 8.3%.  With different N timings maybe the highest yielding treatment could have been even higher?

Fungicide trial, Culcairn (Trojan wheat)

• Based on this trial, if stripe rust was left uncontrolled,  yield loss was up to 4.0t/ha.
• Cogito at GS30, Prosaro at GS32 and Opus at GS39 gave the highest, significant (p<0.05), yield of 7.67t/ha. The additional gross margin from the application of fungicide was: $800/ha.
• If farmers continue to grow susceptible varieties such as Trojan and Bennett, adding flutriafol on the fertilizer gives the grower significant improvement in levels of control. Fungicides will still be required at GS32 and GS39.

Nitrogen trial, Gerogery (HyTTec canola)

• Based on this trial, an additional 80 kg/ha of urea at the yellow bud stage gave a significant (p=0.005) yield advantage over the overall paddock strategy. The gross margin of the additional applied nitrogen was $29/ha.
• Increasing the rate of urea at yellow bud to 160 kg/ha urea didn’t increase yield significantly.
• To optimize yield,  aim for a target flowering dry matter of 5t/ha. The trial reached this optimum amount of dry matter at flowering. Hybrids offer the potential for higher and more resilient yields over the open pollinated varieties.