Investigating western farming systems

Abstract

Take home messages
- Winter cereals showed improved water use efficiency (WUE) compared to legumes and summer grown crops at both Narrabri and Mungindi
- Generally, dollars per mm of crop water used was greater for winter crops ($2.20) than summer grown crops ($1.30)
- Although summer crops had lower WUE than winter crops there is a benefit in growing summer crops to manage root lesion nematodes
- Crop choice influenced the fallow efficiency (FE). The median fallow efficiency after winter cereals equalled 0.26, whereas fallow efficiency after chickpeas equalled 0.14
- Modelling suggests a high intensity cropping rotation can be the most profitable, if crops are planted on 100mm or more plant available water (PAW).