Agriculture Victoria and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) have released the results of a five-year study which found that machinery traffic on farms can cause yield-limiting soil compaction across Low Rainfall Zone (LRZ) cropping regions
Land Management Development Officer at Agriculture Victoria, Rebecca Mitchell said the study, Application of controlled traffic farming in the low rainfall zone, yielded information all LRZ growers would want to know.
“Controlled traffic farming (CTF) confines the wheels and tracks of all cropping equipment to 12-18 per cent of paddock area and leaves the remaining area of the paddock uncompacted and in optimum condition for crop productivity,” Ms Mitchell said.
“CTF is becoming widely adopted in the Australian grains industry, with a national average of around 30 per cent of farms using the system,” she said.
“However, the LRZ of south-eastern Australia is a marked exception with a much lower adoption rate of five per cent.”
Ms Mitchell said a key output of the research project was the development of the online publication On the right track: Controlled traffic in the low rainfall zone of south-eastern Australia launched earlier this year.
“The publication is packed with practical information that will help interested grain growers to adopt the system as smoothly and inexpensively as possible,” she said.
She said the publication included practical guides to CTF, grower experience case studies and research results of several other CTF studies which investigated specific questions of interest to growers.
The 88-page online publication can be accessed on the GRDC website at this PS News link.
