Investment

Growers participating in the National Grower Network (NGN) forums in northern NSW have identified that barley crops grown in warmer cropping areas of GRDC's northern region can often experience rapid growth periods in early crop development stages and up to head emergence. This fast and excessive growth, exacerbated in seasons of high rainfall and under high nutrition production systems, can result in crop lodging and harvest issues resulting in significant reduction in grain yield.
Significant lodging was observed across commercial barley crops throughout NNSW and QLD in the previous two harvests (2020 and 2021). Whilst commercial plant growth regulators (PGR) are available, growers and advisers have low confidence with the current use patterns and consequently products are often applied reactively rather than proactively during periods of excessive growth. An opportunity exists to test current application practices and validate alternate use patterns for the commercial PGRs. Alternative use patterns include, but are not limited to, low-rate application, and multiple dose strategies which in theory have the potential to manage periods of excessive growth, extend the grain filling period, to manage crop standability and ultimately increase crop yield.
This investment will develop a decision support matrix to enable growers and consultants to increase the reliability, repeatability and return from PGRs. The Research Organisation will conduct 'proof of concept trials' investigating PGR use patterns in barley to manage periods of excessive growth in early crop development and during head emergence to manage crop lodging commonly experienced in the warmer grain growing regions of NNSW and SQLD.