Investment

This project will examine the viability and productivity of late winter and early spring seeding of cereal varieties in the Southern region of Western Australia. The trial will assess which varieties are most suitable to being seeded later in the season as a mitigation strategy to water logging. This project has been developed in response to recent waterlogging events in the Albany Port Zone (APZ) in 2021 and Esperance Port Zone (EPZ) in 2021 and 2022. In these years large areas of crops remained unplanted well into August and September due to the highly waterlogged soils making paddocks untrafficable.

Growers and consultants within the APZ and EPZ have expressed a desire to know the most profitable and productive barley and wheat varieties, and how to manage these crops when sowing so late in the growing season. However, there is no publicly available data on late sowing wheat and barley for growers to reference to help them decide what to plant in these situations. Given waterlogging is a relatively common occurrence in the APZ and the EPZ, it is imperative that farmers have resources to lean on in order to mitigate losses and maximise the productivity that can be generated from late seeding. This project will aim to fill this knowledge gap, by providing locally relevant data directly to local growers and consultants.