The Next Step For Precision Agriculture

 Objectives:

Currently precision agriculture in the Australian sugar industry centres around controlled

traffic, strategic tillage and variable rate nutrition programs. This project will investigate a range of agronomy issues that limit yield, and develop options and increase knowledge on how these agronomy issues can be managed with precision agriculture concepts.

• The group will partner with QDPI's John Hughes, to conduct a large scale comprehensive trial that will ultimately deliver productivity and profitability with site specific management. .
• The data collected from the trial will highlight a range of yield limiting factors, the degree of impact, and options to manage these yield limiting factors.
• This information will benefit both the group members and the industry at large, but will specifically benefit group members and other growers who are implementing a precision agriculture farming system.
• This project will determine the effects and impact of soil borne pest and disease in a site specific situation
• This project will investigate the feasibility of variable variety planting within designated zones to address areas prone to water logging as identified and ground truthed through EM soil mapping
• The group plan to build on and enhance research that BBS 001 project is conducting to get additional information that directly addresses their specific interests.

Project Activities:

• The group plan to conduct a 3 year trial in conjunction with QDPI which will have three main objectives:
• (1) establish the yield potential of sugarcane within paddock geo-referenced soil groups with known characteristics with

(A) conventional machinery passage;

(B) in the absence of machinery passage (apart from hilling up operations).

• (2) Comparative monitoring of profile moisture percentages, bulk density, soil resistance, and water infiltration across defined soil groups in a conventionally grown sugar crop, traffic free crop, and bare soil environment.
• (3) Monitoring of soil borne disease persistence and dynamics in a crop and non crop situation across soil groups with known characteristics.
• The outputs from the trial will include data on subsurface drainage of known soil types, which will in-turn allow for management options to be developed. This research will indicate varietal tolerance to waterlogged conditions in sub-tropical monsoonal conditions. Management options may include variable variety planting to ensure varieties with tolerance to water logged conditions are planted in accordance with soil mapping.
• This research will also investigate the relationship between root mass and disease pressure in compacted and un-compacted soils.
• This research will also measure the residual capacity of pachymetra and nematodes in compacted, un-compacted and bare soil.
• The information gained will then be applied to a whole of farm situation

Contact Person: Tony Bugeja 0417 711 468