New $60 million grains research project aims to boost crop yields in Western Australia

A “visionary” new grains research project worth nearly $60 million promises to help WA growers boost crop yields by more than 10 per cent in the face of an increasingly dry climate. The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development is leading the five-year study, which aims to lift water and nutrient use efficiency. It builds on pioneering DPIRD research that showed periodically loosening soil and mixing in lime or gypsum improved crop water use efficiency, resulting in up to a four-fold increase in grain yields. DPIRD scientists will investigate how deeper soil improvement known as soil profile re-engineering coupled with tailored crop nutrition, crop rotation and agronomic management can achieve further gains. WA Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis on Wednesday announced $29.2m in State Government funding towards the project — dubbed the Soil Water and Nutrition collaboration — with the Grains Research and Development Corporation set to stump up another $26.7m. “This visionary initiative between DPIRD and the GRDC will help future-proof our grains industry by improving water and nutrient use efficiency to produce more, higher quality grain — even in the face of declining rainfall trends,” Ms Jarvis said. “The SWAN collaboration is another example of a great research partnership in pursuit of continuous improvement to help grain growers adapt to a drying climate and remain internationally competitive.” Experiments with growers throughout the Wheatbelt will examine the use of mineral mulches to reduce evaporation and methods to overcome poor soil structure in WA’s ancient soils. The research will also look at crop nutrition strategies to be used alongside soil engineering to enhance grain production, such as improving the uptake of potassium fertiliser. GRDC chair John Woods, a grain grower at Goondiwindi in Queensland, joined Ms Jarvis for the announcement at Technology Park in Bentley. He said the collaboration built on GRDC’s investment in soil constraints and crop nutrition in WA, through an expanded focus on paddock-scale, readily adoptable machinery, and soil amendment strategies that delivered long term productivity and financial gains for growers. “Over the past 15 years GRDC has invested more than $75m in soil constraints research in Western Australia, and this research has delivered profit gains of up to $100 per hectare for growers,” Mr Woods said. “Those growers who adopted these soil amelioration practices improved their water use efficiency, which in turn enables them to grow more crop per millimetre of rain.” Analysis of farm data by agricultural consultants Planfarm and Farmanco showed this equated to a $3.7m increase in profit over a decade for the average WA cropping operation. “Now GRDC is building on our investment in this core area, because we believe there are further gains that can be made both in productivity and ultimately in on-farm profitability,” Mr Woods said. “This is a priority research space for WA growers, with the potential to transform water and nutrient use efficiency across the State’s variable soil types.” GRDC expects the “transformational” research will support the State’s growers to achieve crop yield gains of more than 10 per cent. DPIRD research scientist and SWAN collaboration manager Stephen Davies said the study would would deliver “next step” soil re-engineering management practices to growers. “By removing soil constraints to a depth of 80 centimetres or more and allowing plants better access to nutrients, growers will be able to capture the benefits of other crop management and genetics improvements to fully realise the potential of their farming systems,” Dr Davies said. “Growers have an incredible track record of adopting new practices and we know that more than 80 per cent of WA grain producers actively manage their soils.” An industry advisory group comprised of growers, consultants and researchers will be tasked with supporting growers to adopt the research’s “key learnings”. Crop trials are already under way, with more planned for the 2025 cropping season across all WA port zones.