Damian Jones (Irrigation Farmers Network) and Yvette Williams (Murray Dairy) examining the wheat growing at the C4Milk project site at Kerang in August last year. Photos: Mike Woods
The first season of break crop treatments have been applied in the C4Milk research project in the Murray region.
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The project is funded by Dairy Australia, Gardiner Foundation, Murray Dairy and Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
The goal of this research is to better understand the impact intensive fodder cropping rotations have on the sustainability and profitability of dairy farms.
The project is doing this by evaluating crop-on-crop effects over multiple seasons.
We want to understand how important break crops are in continuous forage growing systems.
As more dairy farms in the region transition their systems to include growing forage crops it has been observed that maize-cereal rotations are relied on heavily, as they can produce the large volumes of high-quality forage that is needed to feed lactating cows.
There are concerns that continuing this type of cropping pattern for extended periods may result in agronomic issues — such as weeds, pests and diseases — and also have a negative impact on soil resources.
While the impacts of poor crop rotations has been demonstrated in grain production systems, there is very little research in fodder cropping systems.
Yvette Williams (Murray Dairy) and Angus Butterfield (BCG) talk about the vetch and barley crops growing at the C4Milk project site at Mitiamo at BCG’s spring crop walk event.
Treatments in the project include different break crop strategies, such as single season break crops and consecutive season break crops (for example, winter-winter or winter-summer) and different types of crops, including winter cereals (wheat, barley and oats), vetch, canola, maize and soybeans.
The research is being carried out at a dryland site near Mitiamo, which is managed by Birchip Cropping Group, and an irrigated site near Kerang, that is being managed by Irrigation Farmers Network.
Crops are being harvested at ‘silage’ stage and we are measuring forage yield and quality.
Soils are also being sampled every six months to measure a number of properties such as carbon, various forms of nitrogen, moisture, and other key minerals and attributes.
After three seasons of setting up the break crop strategies, the project is looking to run two years of cereal forage cropping — barley-barley at the dryland site, and maize-wheat-maize-wheat at the irrigated site.
This will hopefully provide some information on what effects, if any, of the carryover from the break crops, and how much of an impact they have on the following crops.
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