Australia-Crop Rotation.

AUSTRALIA-CROP ROTATION.

A new low-risk technique for establishing self-sustaining crop/pasture rotations in a single pass operation has been developed, helping to reduce the requirement for synthetic fertilisers.

Twin-sowing was developed in Western Australia to allow farmers to establish new annual pasture legumes with hard seeds, while growing crops at regular seed rates – and without having the two compete for moisture.

NSW Department of Primary Industries research agronomist (pastures), Belinda Hackney, Wagga Wagga, described twin-sowing at a number of pasture updates across the State in recent weeks.

She said the three-year system started with the planting of unscarified hard pasture seed (or in the case of seradellas, seed encased in a pod) together with either cereal or oilseed crops.

The seed of the annual legume was so hard it did not germinate in the first year, so there was no need to reduce normal cereal or oilseed seed rates in that year.

The legume seed that softened in the first year went on to germinate in the second year – known as the pasture year.

The annual pasture grown in the second year set seed, providing hard seed or pods (too hard to germinate in the third year of the program) – and fixed nitrogen to boost yields in the third-year cereal or oilseed crop.

This type of crop-pasture rotation could then continue with pasture, followed by crop, and depending on the species chosen, the length of cropping phases could be varied after the third year.