1. Testing New Products 13WMG16 Bill Bowden and Dave Gartner West Midlands Group Crop updates March 7, 2014 Badgingarra

2. Aims To independently compare a range of post seeding agricultural products. To demonstrate that one trial is not enough to demonstrate the efficacy of any product and/or practice

3. Background to the trial Products to be tested – Growers and overseas trips – Local marketers of products Will they work under local conditions and for our farming systems? – Testimonials not good enough – Appropriate controls essential Easier to disprove than prove but still site season and management specific – Popper and falsification

4. Background – cont’d Many promoters do not say when and where their product works – Implies that they work any where – In nutrition they often do not specify the soil fertility – Yield potential But often the product has to be used in a specific way – Mechanical weed control – Save dollars vs traditional – Work in long term but not in year of application

5. Specifics of this trial All plots were sown by the farmer – Which meant that we could only have post seeding applications – Standard cultivar, sowing time, seeding rate, weed control. Soil Test Results 0 – 10 cm depth: – mineral N 36 mg/kg, P 16 mg/kg, K 72 mg/kg, S 18 mg/kg, – OC 1.57%, conductivity 0.142 ds/M, pH(CaCl2) 5.3, – exchangeable cations (meq/100gm):- ex Al 0.048?, ex Ca 3.09, ex Mg 0.38, ex K 0.18, ex Na 0.08 Rotation: – wheat 2009, canola 2010, wheat 2011, canola 2012, wheat 2013

6. Trial design Two levels of background nutrition – As infertile site as possible – Plus everything plot (Summit spud) Large plots for longer term work Appropriate controls – Nil every thing – Test of mixture components

7. Low and high fertility blocks The two main treatments were sown without and with Summit Spud at 130 kg/ha. The plus fertiliser treatments were drilled with the seed and provided the following nutrients: 10.4 kg N/ha, 16.6 kg P/ha, 14.6 kg K/ha, 10.3 kg S/ha, 2.9 kg Ca/ha, 1.2kg Mg/ha, 180 gm Cu/ha, 170 gm Zn/ha, 200 gm Mn/ha and 10 gm Mo/ha The plus nutrient plots were given subsequent additional 100 litres/ha of UAN (42 kg N/ha) on June 17 (3.5 leaf stage)

8. The sub-treatments/products tested

9. Cross treatments- what and when

10. Plot layout

11. Crop at about 4 leaf stage high fertility to the left, low to the right

12. 92 kg N/ha plot at 2 nd node stage N was applied to the left 3 metres of the 4 metre plot

13. IPUSagro plot at 2 nd node stage N was applied to the left 3 metres of the 4 metre plot

14. Harvest results

15. Yield response to nitrogen inputs

16. Dollars and cents? The slopes of the fitted lines give responses of 10 and 7 kg grain per kg N for the minus and plus fertilizer treatments at seeding respectively. If you had known about the season, at $0.3 /kg for wheat and $1.33 /kg for N it would have paid to use the highest rate of N on both (plus/minus) sown fertilizer treatments.

17. Conclusions Products need testing over a wide range of sites, soils, seasons and management conditions. The resourcing of such testing is the responsibility of the promoters For this site in an exceptional season no response was obtained to the non-nitrogen products

18. Acknowledgements Graham White and father Andrew Kenny WMG DAFWA Summit CSBP IPUSagro, Grazers, Calsap (Optima) And in particular, Joel Andrew

19. Questions?

20. Yield and proteins