Transformation agronomy by growing summer crops in winter: Winter sown sorghum

Abstract

History shows that transformational changes in agriculture are rarely associated with the adoption of single innovations. It has been argued that transformative changes in agriculture have usually resulted from the incremental adoption of complementary technologies, and result in ongoing increases in yield from improvements from breeding and agronomy – though gains in productivity remain piece meal, insufficient and primarily confused with adoption processes. Here we propose that there is a role and need to design research that aims to be more transformative, likely to have larger than the ongoing or incremental gains, and that can be achieved in shorter periods of time. This argument is discussed by summarising the results of a four-year cross-agency research program conducted across Eastern Australia that tested crop designs of winter sown sorghum (WSS). The innovation is a systems adaptation with the potential to produce gains in productivity and farmer profits beyond what is the incremental or ongoing yield gain – though impact will still be dependent on adoption rates.