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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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)

The sub-treatments/products tested

Cross treatments- what and when

Plot layout

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

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

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

Harvest results

Yield response to nitrogen inputs

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.

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

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

Questions?

Yield and proteins