Open Day 2016
Soils theme
A part of FarmLink's Landcare Soil Moisture Education for Landowners to Avoid Erosion and Achieve Productivity Outcomes Project
Advances in Soil Moisture Sensors
Paul Hutchinson, Hussat; Chris Duff, Delta
Capacitance soil moisture sensors developed for the horticultural market are routinely used in dryland, however many designs have shortcomings because of the need for external power and a buried communication cable. They also often lack the required level of accuracy, are dependent on changes in electrical conductivity and have no standardised installation method. In this talk we introduce a new dielectric soil moisture sensor for dryland. It includes an internal battery with service life of 10 years, underground telemetry to communicate the data without external cables, compensation for changes in electrical conductivity, factory calibration and a standardised method of installation. The probe has been installed at Temora and other nearby farms and the data collected to date shall be discussed.
Soil Characterisation - Water Holding Capacity and PAW
Mark Glover, CSIRO
Knowledge of soil Plant Available Water Capacity (PAWC) is important to on-farm management decisions, particularly those reliant on crop modelling or yield forecasting. Mark will explain some important terms and concepts related to PAWC, explore influential soil properties and their relationship to landscapes then conclude with a summary of how this understanding might influence management decisions.
New Technology to Assess Soil Moisture
Ben Macdonald (CSIRO)
Climate variability, volatile input costs and strong competition are increasing the complexity of farm management decisions, while a range of new land-use and management options are emerging to broaden the choices available to farmers. Understanding the soil moisture and its dynamics is essential for responding to these challenges and seizing new opportunities. The revolution in data sources, data systems and information technology has created new opportunities for farmers to measure and manage soils at the field scale so that they can improve profitability and sustainability. New sensors and platforms allow the measurement of soil moisture at a paddock scale these include
Satellite soil moisture sensing platforms such as SMAP (http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov/) and Sentinel (https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/home) that provide estimates of surface soil moisture at relatively coarse resolutions (30km pixel or finer).
The Australian Cosmic-ray Neutron Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (CosmOz) currently provides surface soil moisture estimates at 12 locations (http://www.ermt.csiro.au/html/cosmoz.html). Each probe provides a continuous moisture estimate for an area of roughly 40 Ha. A newly developed mobile soil moisture sensing platform (CosmOz in a trailer) will be tested as a tool to integrate between the satellite remote sensing scale and the static CosmOz scale.
In paddock energy and water balance water sensors. The project aims to bring these networks together and broaden the information power beyond what each network can achieve individually.
Understanding Soil Water to Improve Nitrogen Decision Making
Chris Minehan
Understanding and monitoring plant available water allows cropping inputs to better match realistic production potential. Assessing modelled outcomes against actual past performance is an important part of making Nitrogen allocation decisions.
Nitrogen application strategies in high rainfall years
Rob Norton, International Plant Nutrition Institute
Nitrogen application in wet years. Wet years mean higher yield potentials and to meet those potentials nutrition needs to be stepped up, and balancing N and water is a critical part of managing crops in any season. In very wet years, the same applies, but losses due to leaching, overland flow and denitrification can make estimating supply difficult - as well as having the challenge of a paddock that has patches of good and poor growth due to waterlogging. Rob will discuss selecting the right source of N to be applied at the right rate, and suppled at the right time and in the right place as an aid to getting the best from the crop. Some ideas can be seen at - http://anz.ipni.net/article/ANZ-3269.
Brought to you by BCG and MPCN.