Nutrition Packages for Wheat on Sands
Authors: Therese McBeath1, Rick Llewellyn1, Vadakattu Gupta1, Michael Moodie2, Bill Davoren1, Willie Shoobridge1, Todd McDonald2 and Mick Brady2
1CSIRO Agriculture & Food Waite Campus, 2Mallee Sustainable Farming
Funded By: GRDC Stubble Initiative MSF00003
Peer Review: Sean Mason (Agronomy Solutions), Sarah Noack (Hart Fieldsite), Jake Giles (SARDI)
Key Words: nutrition, wheat, sandy soils, sands
Key Messages
- Good early nitrogen nutrition remains a key driver of yield in Mallee soils and penalties can occur with delays in applications to first node.
- Previously observed benefits of improved N use efficiency where Zn is supplied with the N were not captured in the 2017 season.
- Wheat fertilised with DAP placed with seed yielded 0.5 t/ha (20%) less than wheat with DAP placed below seed in 2017 at Loxton but had no effect at Karoonda.
- Using 50 kg DAP/ha with the seed and 35 kg Urea/ha deep was better than 50 kg DAP/ha and 35 kg Urea/ha all below the seed on sand at Loxton.