December 15, 2017
Things that affect your fitness: Christmas – go on, have one more serving of trifle, it is only wafer thin! Television – for example, spending…
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November 22, 2017
When your job is as an agronomist or weeds expert, it’s important to have a spectacular, weed-free lawn. Any agronomist worth their salt knows that…
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November 1, 2017
Weeds are selfish, self-centred, narcissistic, manipulative pieces of work that will do whatever it takes to make themselves look good and make the other plants around them look bad. Some weeds are so self-obsessed that they can manipulate the soil nitrogen into a form that is just the way they like it. New research by Cathryn O’Sullivan from CSIRO is showing that some weeds release chemicals from their roots that slow down the bacteria that are essential to the nitrogen cycle, retaining nitrogen in the ammonium form that weeds can potentially take up faster than crop plants. Totally selfish! Click through to get the details.
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October 18, 2017
Going into the 1932-33 Ashes tour in Australia, Don Bradman was averaging around 100, and he had averaged 139 in the 1930 tour of England….
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September 26, 2017
When does a fracas become a melee? When does a cake become a soufflé? When does a wild radish seed become a viable seed, after which…
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September 8, 2017
Jonah Lomu stood at 6’5”, weighed 120kg, and ran the 100m in a lazy 10.7 seconds. He could play the power game, the speed game, and he could step. He was the ultimate competitor. Mace wheat, on the other hand, is agile, dependable, and can play the yield game, but its ability to compete with weeds is limited. However, yield is king, and hence Mace has been an extremely successful variety where weeds are under adequate control. What if we could have a wheat variety that could play the yield game and the competition game? What would that look like?
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July 31, 2017
Some excellent research conducted by Stephen Hole, under the watchful eye of Professor Steve Powles at the University of Adelaide in the mid-1990’s investigated the microbial degradation of propyzamide and another similar herbicide, carbetamide. Enhanced microbial degradation is where the soil bacteria that can eat a particular herbicide build up to very high levels so when the herbicide is applied it is broken down very quickly, effectively reducing the half-life of the herbicide.
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July 13, 2017
Australians invented the lawn mower, rotary clothes hoists, plastic bank notes, WiFi, the electric drill, and five of the six harvest weed seed control (HWSC) techniques. And while the Canadians invented the chaff cart (to feed livestock) it was Australian farmers and researchers who started using it for HWSC. So we’re going to claim HWSC as a true blue Aussie invention too! We are the inventors of some of the key tools of HWSC and a recent GRDC grower survey has shown that we are by far the world leaders in the adoption of these practices.
Not so long ago harvest weed seed control (HWSC) was only used by a minority of early adopting grain growers, now it has gone mainstream and pretty soon just about everyone will be doing it.
Every few years GRDC fund a large grower practices telephone survey. The most recent survey was conducted by CSIRO in 2014, and they collaborated with Michael Walsh who at the time managed the HWSC program at AHRI (now at University of Sydney) to design the HWSC questions. Michael has now reported on the results in a recent scientific publication.
The survey revealed 43% of Australian grain growers are currently practising HWSC and this is set to double within the next five years. Narrow windrow burning is currently the most commonly used practice, with 30% of growers adopting this approach. While its popularity is booming now and probably will stay that way for the next five years, Michael says it’s unlikely to remain the frontrunner in the future. There are some new kids on the HWSC block that are being taken up by Australian grain growers, namely chaff tramlining and the integrated Harrington Seed Destructor (iHSD).
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June 20, 2017
Unfortunately, large parts of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland are as dry as a London newspaper! This edition of AHRI insight looks to address the issue of spraying stressed weeds. We had to go back to 1995 to find some relevant research, but it was worth it. The GRDC funded research conducted by Dave Minkey and John Moore at DAFWA in the 90s is pure gold! In a dry year, we’re often faced with the whole kit and caboodle – moisture stressed weeds, high temperatures, low relative humidity and long durations between rainfall events.
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June 13, 2017
On November 5th, 2010, a truck arrived at Yuna at the northern tip of the Western Australian wheatbelt. Its cargo was a John Deere 9650 harvester with a tow-behind Harrington Seed Destructor attached. Twenty local farmers had arrived to see the new machine that they’d heard about for so long. And what did he find from two years of this GRDC funded, AHRI supported research? One, solitary number: 60%. That’s not the whole story though…read on for more!
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