Background
There are more than 9 million ha of arable sands in the southern cropping region of south- eastern Australia. In many cases a large gap exists between actual yield and water limited yield potential. The GRDC project ‘Increasing production on sandy soils in low and medium rainfall areas of the southern region’ (CSP00203-CSP1606-008RMX) ran from 2017-2023 as a collaboration between the Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC), CSIRO, University of South Australia, South Australian Research and Development Institute, Frontier Farming Systems, Trengove Consulting, AgGrow Agronomy, Agricultural Innovation and Research Eyre Peninsula, Northern Sustainable Soils, Mallee Sustainable Farming, Mackillop Farm Management Group and Pinion Advisory. The aim of this project was to provide growers with techniques to understand the key constraints to production on sands, identify management options to trial on-farm and to estimate the return and risk of investment in these management strategies. With new research investments underway and around the corner, we will continue to provide updates of the latest findings in this exciting research space which is helping to transform sandy landscapes.
Our collaborative research that has explored management options to either mitigate (provide lower cost options to work with) or ameliorate (more transformational and less frequent options) constraints to production on sands. In the resources section we share information about:
- Knowing your constraints,
- Which treatments will best manage the constraints, and how to best set up machinery for these options.
- What responses to expect from the treatments available.
Sandbox App This interactive web application allows the users to identify which constraints and treatment options are relevant, to explore yield results at sites with relevant climates and soil constraints and linked to information about how to optimise the setup of the selected treatments for trialling on-farm.
Project Factsheets The sandy soils project produced a series of factsheets to support the identification of key constraints to crop production in sandy soils and to provide guidelines on the engineering tools (including their set up and operations) to overcome these constraints.
