Background

Why is GRDC seeking innovation that optimises crop nutrition and improves soils and/or delivers step-changes in water and soil productivity and farm profitability?

In Australia, the primary constraint on broadacre agriculture crop yields is water availability. Nutrition also plays a crucial role in achieving higher yields and represents one of the most significant variable expenses for growers. Optimising crop nutrition and efficiency of nutrient and water use are critical for profitability and environmental outcomes.

Groundbreaking innovations that either enhance the availability of water for crops or unlock the chemical, biological and physical productivity of soils, have the potential to benefit Australian grain growers’ profitability. The scale of this potential benefit presents an opportunity for partnership and innovation. Australia’s gross value of grain production would increase by more than $1B annually from just a 3% gain in crop nutrition productivity – achievable through more efficient application. GRDC conservatively estimates that overcoming major soil constraints to crop nutrient and water use e.g., sodicity, salinity, low pH, and aluminium and other nutrient toxicities, would lead to a net increase in grain production value of over $0.5B annually. Improvements in crop nutrition and efficiency of nutrient and water use would also have broader economic, food security, and environmental benefits.

Rainfed agriculture in Australia requires decision-making amidst substantial uncertainty regarding seasonal conditions. It involves committing resources upfront for a season whose outcomes are unpredictable, with some unavoidable risks. While in some years well-informed decisions may lead to suboptimal results, growers are increasingly utilising formal analysis and decision support tools along with their intuition to navigate these uncertainties. Nevertheless, without marked enhancements in seasonal climate predictions—and greater acceptance and adeptness at using these probabilistic forecasts—the uncertainty in cropping decisions will persist significantly.

Compounding the impact of seasonal variations on crop yield and financial success are spatially diverse soil constraints that demand custom solutions. Consequently, the economic benefit of addressing these constraints fluctuates within paddocks and across different seasons. In certain situations, investment in these solutions might even detract from profitability. This fluctuation constitutes an obstacle for growers considering the adoption of management strategies for these constraints. Many of these strategies entail substantial capital outlay and may not appeal to growers with limited funds or immediate financial goals.

Moreover, spatially variable soil constraints require tailored solutions, making the economic benefits inconsistent. High costs and risks deter many growers from adopting management strategies, especially those requiring substantial capital. While technology can help, better access to farm-specific data is crucial, but current data collection methods, like soil sampling, are too expensive and labour-intensive for most farmers

Focus of GRDC’s current and past investment

GRDC has a substantial past and current portfolio of RD&E investment in crop nutrition, soil, and water productivity. There has been extensive crop nutrition management research and development considering the ‘4 Rs’: right rate, right source, right placement and right timing. Investment has created a wealth of data describing how crop yield responds to varying the ‘4 Rs’ across different soil types and environments reaffirming the large influence on short and long-term profitability. GRDC has also significantly invested in soil constraints that affect crop nutrient and water use efficiency, including identification, diagnosis and management options to mitigate impacts. Project details of past and current investments are listed on the GRDC website.

Opportunities for innovation

Despite GRDC’s significant investment with positive industry outcomes, GRDC expects there are more opportunities for innovation in nutrient and water use efficiency, soil productivity, and farm profitability. GRDC is thus calling for innovative RD&E proposals in soils, nutrient, and water productivity spanning two of the Focus Areas identified in GRDC’s Research, Development & Extension Plan 2023-28. GRDC welcomes all innovative proposals that fall within the Focus Area scopes and offer step-change improvements over current industry practice. Based on our knowledge of industry need, technology, and market trends, several prospects for innovation have been outlined.

Focus Area: Optimise crop nutrition and improve soils

Nutrition is critical in building crop yield and remains one of the highest variable costs for growers, so optimising crop nutrition and efficiency of nutrient use is critical for profitability. Responsible nutrient management also has important implications for sustainability, particularly off-site environmental impacts including gaseous losses (e.g., nitrous oxide emissions), and leaching or surface runoff (e.g., eutrophication and reduced water quality). Within this focus area, GRDC will invest in:

1. Foundational knowledge to inform soil and nutrient management
2. Information that informs decision making about nutrition source, rate, timing, and placement
3. Adoption of existing soil amelioration, mitigation, or tolerance solutions
4. New fertiliser technologies

In this Focus Area, GRDC sees opportunities in creating and implementing new methods and tools, new technologies or products for identifying and/or managing soil constraints and tracking soil and crop nutrition, including using new sensing and automation technologies to make soil sampling/testing cheaper, faster, and/or less labour-intensive. There are also opportunities to customise soil and nutrient advice based on farm-specific data and conditions.  Growers could also benefit from new, comprehensive, approaches to account for profitability and risk outcomes of nutrient management strategies at both field and farm scales, improving biological nitrogen fixation, and balancing nutrient availability and demand dynamics in different cropping systems.

Focus Area: Step-changes in soil and water productivity

Water is a finite resource and widely accepted as the most universally limiting determinant of crop yield in Australia. In the face of climate change, and in one of the driest and most variable environments on the planet, unproductive water use through evaporation, run-off and deep drainage frequently present an opportunity lost. New approaches to transform the capture, storage, and availability of water for crops have the potential to deliver step change yield improvements and sustainability benefits. Investment to dramatically reduce unproductive water losses and unlock the chemical, biological, and physical productivity of soils will be a focus. This could include discoveries that overcome constraints currently beyond our control, unlock soil nutrient reserves, reduce or eliminate nutrient losses to the environment or enhance beneficial biological activity in our soils. Within this focus area, GRDC will invest in new approaches to:

1. Improve soil water capture and plant uptake
2. Overcome chemical, physical, and biological constraints.
3. Unlock soil nutrient reserves

In this Focus Area, GRDC sees opportunities to explore new and innovative inputs (e.g., biologicals), crop genetic traits, new farm practices and technology, along with integrative approaches which mitigate soil constraints. There is particular need for low-cost management options that improve capture and use of rainfall on soils constrained by single or multiple chemical, physical, and/or biological constraints to crop production.

Leverage opportunity through Analytics for the Australian Grains Industry

Analytics for the Australian Grains Industry (AAGI) is a GRDC strategic partnership with Curtin University, the University of Queensland, and Adelaide University. AAGI has capabilities across the breadth of analytics applied to grains RD&E, including biometry, bioinformatics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, mathematical and biophysical modelling, and geo-spatial statistics. AAGI involvement is available as an in-kind GRDC contribution to these investments. To explore options for AAGI involvement, applicants must make enquiries to AAGI during this RFT period and identify potential areas of collaboration as part of their application. Successful applicants will be required to complete an Analytical Collaboration Plan to specify the data to be provided to AAGI and the analytics AAGI will provide. A sample Plan template is available from AAGI. Applicants must make enquiries to the AAGI Director, Dr Nathan O'Callaghan, nathan.ocallaghan@curtin.edu.au. Please note, applicants that request funding for analytics readily available through AAGI must provide a technical and/or value-for-money rationale for not using in-kind AAGI capabilities.

This Procurement

Guiding Principles

• The work must comprise RD&E activities with an identified outcome for the benefit of Australian grain growers. GRDC is unable to invest in infrastructure.
• The benefit to growers must be quantifiable.
• for proposals that will result in a commercial product or service, respondents should address GRDC’s commercialisation principles.
• GRDC can do research and informs policy but does not author industry policy. Proposed policy work must have a clear path to impact.
• Projects will be categorised into three stages:
  1. Discovery (Technology Readiness Levels 1-3), which explores early-stage ideas and technologies;
  2. Development (Technology Readiness Levels 4-5), which focuses on refining and piloting new technologies; and
  3. Accelerated Commercialisation (Technology Readiness Levels 6-8), which aims to fast-track the market readiness of developed technologies.

In Scope

Innovation RFP Project Categories and Types

Categories:

Types:

Out of Scope:

• Pure evaluation of commercial products: Projects focussed solely on the evaluation of one or more commercial products -- readily available in the Australian market – are out of scope.
• Pre-breeding for genetic tolerance to soil constraints without a clear path to market/breeder adoption.

Helpful resources for applicants

Technology Readiness Levels