Break Crop Benefits - West

Break crops are especially important in the application of integrated disease and weed management. They provide the opportunity to use alternative control options and different timings.

Break crops generally refer to a pulse or oilseed crop grown instead of cereals. The decision not to grow wheat but to grow and choose a break crop is based on many factors including the relative profitability of the crops – yield by price, the cereal disease pressure, herbicide resistance and personal preference.

The decision to grow a break crop is also complicated by many interactions through the cropping sequences including disease and herbicide carryovers and economic issues such as capital investment for new equipment or storage.

The Department of Agriculture and Food (WA) (DAFWA) has collated a database of all the available rotation experiments conducted in WA. Over 10,000 records representing the results of over 160 experiments conducted since 1966 appear in the database. In the experiments conducted to date, continuous wheat was rarely as productive or economically viable as any rotation which includes either a pasture or break crop, regardless of nitrogen fertiliser input.

• 1.85 mbBreak Crop Benefits fact sheet: Why make the break?Introducing broadleaf crops into the rotation offers a range of benefits, especially in relation to disease and weed control. In mixed farming systems pastures can offer an alternative break crop option.