Better Frost Decisions September 2022
Tanja Morgan: Welcome to the Better Frost decisions, podcast for September brought to you by the MSF team I'm Tanja Morgan.
I'm pleased to be sitting here in the middle of September and recording a frost podcast and looking at the forecast. And we haven't really seen much frost. It's fantastic. It's been wet across the Southern region Springs looking great crops are looking good. So what are we going to talk about on this episode?
Well, we're still catching up with our regular climate guru, Peter Hayman We then head over to Victoria and meet Jason Brand out in the paddock. And we hear from Josh Hollitt involved in the EP project and finally catch up with Kenton Porker from FAR Australia. Where we delve into the new GRDC investment in frost.
But before we get on with the show, I want to let you know about the Better Frost Decisions facebook page. This page is open to the public. All you need to do is jump onto Facebook and search better frost decisions . And if we do get a frost across the district, we hope to connect you with some of the experts that will help you make decisions about how to ID frost. Whether to cut it for hay, whether to leave it for harvest and what you might do going into next year. So don't forget to check out Facebook and jump on board.
Tanja Morgan: We're now joined by Peter Hayman, who is the principal scientist with climate applications at SARDI. Welcome, Peter. Great to have you here.
Peter Hayman: Thanks, Tanja.
Tanja Morgan: So we're recording this mid to end of September. What are we looking at in terms of climate and weather?
Yeah. So Like every year is different and every year is comes with its challenges, but certainly July was extraordinarily dry. And generally we expect July to be wet and cold. I July was just really dry. What was interesting is that During July, everyone was, talking about the negative Indian ocean dipole and we were talking about that sort of outlook and so on, And the Bureau's model was really early August was looking wet from there.
And this scene that the negative I O D kicked in and we did get this rain through August. Through September and not everybody gets it at the right time and so on, but , there's been so many events that, some people miss out, but on the whole it's been pretty widespread and pretty good.
And obviously for the Eastern states, but also for harvest here is the fact of a third La Nina developing, which has been much discussed which is usually helpful for us. We get more rain in La Ninas and we're obviously rainfall limited most of the time. However, we are now looking at, in some cases where people are worried about a wet harvest and so on, which can happen with La Ninas.
So, Some good rainfall events. Sometimes they went across the north of the Southern region. Sometimes there was more rain in the south looking at generally low frost events so far. But the seasons certainly not finished yet, but I think people have got confidence that they might get through to the end, without significant frost at this stage.
What do climate drivers like IOD and La Nina mean for frost?
Peter Hayman: It is a good question. So firstly we all know that these frosts are radiation frosts. They are these cold, clear still nights with really dry air coming in and so on the whole cloudy rainy events, even where these events have not always dumped a whole lot of rain in every location, it's often been cloudy and often windy and so on with them. And so on, all of that is, is reducing the risk of frost. And so we tend not to get those conditions, however, and there's always, and however, and
what can happen is all you need is one event to do so much damage. so whilst we might change the risk profile a bit, we don't change it that much. When we look at past Indian ocean Dipo negative years, and even past La Nina years, we may be able to say, There are fewer frosts, but we can't say much about the date of these late frosts and that they remain a weather event and it doesn't take much to set them up for a weather event and that sort of damage.
And I'd love to be able to say, oh, we know there's a negative IOD, so we can't get frost. Unfortunately, when you look at the data of previous negative, I O D years, there's still frost in those years and there's still some late frost in those years. It doesn't shift the odds as much as we might for does it a little bit, but it's, if you're playing a betting game on number of.
You might win on that. If you're playing a game , on these date of these late frosts, unfortunately they are better understood as random weather events. The fact that things are wetter, there's more stored, water around and so on. Is a good mitigating effect as well.
We know , that helps as well. And that with say pulse crops , where there could some extra growth after a frost. And so on that extra stored soil water is really valuable and so on. so We reduce the risk, but it's still there.
Tanja Morgan: Farmers are pretty happy about the fact that soil moisture is at a good level at the moment, and that will definitely play a role in helping mitigate frost. I guess the interesting question will.
If we do get a late frost and I know that we can get them. I think 4th of November in my region, in the Southern Mallee of south Australia, we've recorded frosts later as that. What would people do in terms of cutting hay versus keeping paddocks for grain You know, it's really interesting to look at the price of commodities at the moment.
And the fact that wheaten hay barley hay might be 50 to two thirds, the price of grain at the moment. So it's gonna be an interesting proposition for people to work out how much frost damage they've had, if we get it, and whether it's worth cutting for hay.
Peter Hayman: Yeah, so Tanja much more about the hay market than I do, but it's interesting that when the grain price is so good relative to the hay price then identifying frost becomes really important cause you don't wanna make the mistake of thinking there's a frost when there isn't. Back I think in I'll get my years wrong. But I think in 2019 where there was such a a strong hay market, it didn't really matter if you made that mistake because the hay prices were so good.
But when that difference is enormous it becomes, this sort of ability to pick the frosted area. And make that decision becomes more difficult in a way. And yeah, it's a, it's a trickier year. And so generally we would see that when we get more rain, We would expect the hay market to be less.
But you were saying that in some areas, because there's been so much rain, there would be some interest still, some people will be looking for hay. Do you think?
Tanja Morgan: Oh, I think that there probably will be some local demand for hay still. Particularly in areas that have had far too much rain and perhaps the quality of their feed, isn't quite there because it's been washed out.
So it'll be interesting to see how that stacks up, but I mean, grain prices are just excellent at the moment. People that might have considered hay and are, are relying on contractors, that makes it a less attractive proposition.
The fact that, we're still getting some fairly substantial spring rain in. Areas that makes growing, Hey, a less attractive proposition, lots of factors play into it. And it looks like potentially the grain could win out this season when it comes to frost.
Peter Hayman: And it's stating the obvious, but sometimes we talk about frost being a problem in drought years and that's the case. We get more of these events in drought years than so on. But I still remember in 2016 when Mick Faulkner pointed out that 2016 was another negative I O D year. Some people were really damaged by frost in that year.
And never is a frost more expensive than in a good year, so that the cost of the frost is much higher in a good year. And like you say, high grain prices. Extremely high input prices mean the stakes are really high this year. So it's been it's wonderful that for so many people, that there is a sense that they're getting past a danger period now, but like you say, there was the Melbourne cup day frost that early November frost.
And there's plenty of times where we get frost through October, which experienced farmers will know better than I, and I guess, again not all crops are really early this year either, so there's a range of possibilities there.
Tanja Morgan: We'll wait to see how the season plays out, but it's looking pretty good so far. We're pretty hopeful that our good conditions will continue throughout the rest of spring. So thank you very much for joining us today, Peter. We'll see how things play out.
Peter Hayman: We learn year by year, but I think it's also really good to have these projects that look over longer periods. And how do we think about the, these risks So something like frost is a high consequence, low frequency events,
and they're inherently hard to learn about because they jump around so much and so on.
Projects that try and get a perspective of what's happening across regions, but also some of the longer term history of what's going on and so on is really valuable in these ways.
Tanja Morgan: Thanks again.
Tanja Morgan: So we're coming to you from the GRDC pulse agronomy site at Ouyen. We're here for the robust ground cover field walk and it's the middle of August and just happened to run into Jason brand.
How you going, Jason?
Jason Brand: Very good. Tanja, how are you today?
Tanja Morgan: Going good. Thank you. So Jason is the senior research agronomist with ag Victoria, and we are here at the lentil and chick P trail site. And I'd love to have a chat with you about frost. So I know that you haven't been doing any specific research in frost, but as part of the funded work that you've been doing with pulses , you have seen observations in frost. What have you learned?
Jason Brand: Yeah. So it's one of the great joys of running trials, whether it's through the Mali or any, even the Wimmera over the years we will get frost on trials. And so a lot of times we haven't run that many specific trials. I think you and I were talking pre this podcast and reflecting the fact that there has been a few.
Small trials to try and understand how it affects grain yield. And we've done specific treatments and things like that over the years which has been a challenge. And particularly back in the days when I think there was first some conversations around PBA hurricane. So that was the first widely grown imi tolerant lentil across the Mallee.
And we saw a number of years where that variety got really hit badly with vegetative frost damage. So they went that ghastly white color. And so there was some comments around, oh, is this related to the imi tolerance trait. And so
there was some work done with Audrey Delahunty. And they looked closely at that and compared a number of different varieties.
And so what we're able to do with that was just pull apart initially that. No, there's no relationship with the imi tolerance trait. But more recently particularly last year we had a really good frost across a trial site north of Nhill and and there's also a breeding site there with GIA And so with that site, we're able to start pulling apart the relative vegetative frost tolerance of a range of lentil varieties.
Tanja Morgan: How cold did it get there? Do you remember?
Jason Brand: Yeah, we had I think the first major frost there was, I think either in late August or early September, we had a frost that went down to minus two minus three type range.
And that was sort two consecutive days and fairly long period overnight. And it gave us a really good screen because everything at that stage was pre flowering stage. So just pre flowering. So it was right smack at the right time for vegetative frost and on that site. Yeah. Most growers would know what hurricane looks like when it gets really frosted vegetatively.
It just went that ghastly white, yellow color, and it was actually really amazing to watch. Cause I remember being out there. In the morning when one of these frost events occurred and being out there throughout the day. And I actually could see the yellowing coming in throughout the day. It was actually happening that quickly with the more sensitive lines
out there.
Tanja Morgan: Yep. So did that actually recover as the season went on? Or how did lentils respond in the long term?
Jason Brand: Yeah. So what happened was is you get that vegetative frost and then within about two weeks, basically, there was no symptoms left again. It was really important that we're out there on that day and being able to score that.
And the other opportunity it gave us is like we had hurricane showing really significant damage. But then also the old varieties, like some of the Aries, like PBA Ace looked really good. So that maintained a nice greenness to it. Kelpi
which is lot of the guys through the Wimmer have been talking about kepi with standing frost.
Kepi certainly didn't show much frost damage then excitingly cuz GIA have just released a couple of new lines. One of their new lines GIA thunder is also. Same sort of rating as a PBA bolt. So it's moderately good to the vegetative frost tolerance.
Tanja Morgan: Okay. How do these varieties respond later in the season?
Jason Brand: Yeah. So one of the big questions and I think you're alluding to this is how does that vegetative frost tolerance relate to yield and often. We've probably come to the conclusion that there's not a huge link between the vegetative frost and yield response. Some of the data last year starts to suggest that maybe there is a bit of a response across the site.
We're able to look at PBA hurricane, particularly, and there are parts of the site where hurricane didn't get frosted as much as other areas. So you're able to look at, score it. The visual damage and and then relate that to yield on a plot scale and what we saw was where there was a relatively low level of frost damage in hurricane.
We were getting yields around that two, two and a half tons per hectare. Mmhmm Where it got to the really high levels of damage, so that Gastly white and even some plants were dying. You were dropping down to around the ton and a half per hectare. So yeah, there is certainly suggestion that there is a yield response, how strong it is we probably need to have another lucky year and get a bit more data.
Tanja Morgan: And hopefully not this year, things are looking pretty good at this site.
Jason Brand: Oh, hopefully not this year. Sitting in a fantastic crop of hallmark. sown in April really optimistic, just starting to pod up. Certainly hoping we don't get any frost or heat events this year.
Tanja Morgan: We were talking about weather here and there'd been about 65 mills at this site at Ouyen since April and only about 20 days under zero, but it was only just under zero. So that's pretty good and things are looking fantastic. So when we are looking at growing legumes in the Mallee, I know a lot of people that are in a really frosty environment, get a bit scared off of sowing legumes because of the frost risk.
Out of all the legumes they could choose. What would be your pick?
Jason Brand: If we could grow beans up. I probably grow veins, but beans probably don't aren't the best adapted to these dry environments. So I actually think one of your best management strategies is by having a little bit of a mix, because we don't know when those frosts are gonna occur.
And so whether you can get a say in lentils are probably one of the better ones in being able to respond after a frost event and still produce reasonable grain yields.
Tanja Morgan: I think people talking about the hay option as well.
Jason Brand: Hay option. There's multiple options there. I think having that little bit of mix sometimes work well.
So even chickpeas tend to flower and pod a little bit later, lentils are a little bit earlier, whether we can get a couple of varieties of lentils that are split in their flowering and podding times across your farms. So yeah. And and it's, it becomes hard to pick one particular crop because one of the lessons i've learnt over many years, and it's not just amongst legumes, it's across the cereals as well. It's having that spread of risk across your whole enterprise. So your cereals and legumes, cause one year your wheat might get hit, but your lentils don't and I think that's the important lesson we've learned more than anything else across the years is that, having that flexibility and then that ability to respond like you're talking about, if we do get hit, can we turn it?
Another product, something else that makes us a get of money.
Tanja Morgan: Yep. That's really good. Thank you very much for your insights today. We're gonna watch this space. We're gonna see what happens with some of the research that might be coming out with frost and legumes and pretty promising things happening at this site.
Thanks Tanja.
Tanja Morgan: We're joined now by Josh Hollitt who's one of the independent consultants involved with the AIR EP GRDC frost research project site.
So thanks for joining us today, Josh. How things looking on the EP?
Josh Hollitt: Yeah. Thanks, Tanja. Yeah, really good over here at the moment. We've been lucky enough to have a pretty good run this year. We've had good early rain and got the crop in on time. Some of the early sown stuff is now out in head and some is flowering and.
We had a bit of a dry period through spring sorry, through middle part of may, but then we had a good wet period through the start of end of may start of June dry July, but then we've been really fortunate with some good rain during August. Anywhere from 50 to sort of 80 meals for a lot of clients and a few others have had more than that.
Very lucky, probably as good as I've seen it over here since 2010, I think so.
Tanja Morgan: Oh, that's really great to hear. So are things a lot earlier than what they normally are?
Josh Hollitt: Yeah, definitely. We've got a lot of crops now that have been approaching head emergence and anywhere from flag.
Flag leaf fully emerged to, to flowering. In terms of cereals, canolas some canolas close to the end of flowering. Obviously you've got the difference between lower and upper EP, but generally things have are really quite advanced for this time of year and looking good after after a wonderful.
Tanja Morgan: How are farmers feeling about frost this season? They're not too worried that things are maturing a lot earlier than normal?
Josh Hollitt: I think I guess we, we're trying to balance that risk with particularly on the upper and central EP with Heat and moisture risk as well, which is typically our problem.
But for certainly for some areas where we've got, patches that are more susceptible to frost it's always in the back of your mind this reproductive sort of stage. So I think, as all farmers and agronomists know that, we haven't got it till it's in the bin.
It's in the back of your mind, there's probably not much we can do about it at this stage. But but I think we've got crops flowering in our optimum period and we've got good soil moisture. Yeah, we're pretty well positioned. Fingers crossed. We can get a finish and avoid some frost from.
Tanja Morgan: Absolutely. Which sort of leads me to asking about the frost research site. It's now the end of August or start of September what's happening in terms of treatments at the site. What's looking good.
Josh Hollitt: We had a research meeting there yesterday and a bit of a debrief and catch up before we have our main fill day there on the 14th of September. But look in that trial site Michael Hind probably drove that and got it up off the ground with the help of GRDC and, AIR EP. And so we've really. Picked a site at Tooligie, which for guys who aren't familiar with the EP it's south of Lock and north of Cummins and has been an area that's particularly been affected by frost over the last five or six years.
And with some areas, being hit every year. We've put a trial site in on a some sloping ground some in the, and the really high frost risk stuff. And the other stuff just up on the rise, a bit higher. We've got a lot of different treatments in the trial with, from different sort of biological treatments and trace elements and all the sort of things that you hear about along with varietal mixes, different varieties, different times of sowing and and different crop types in both areas of the paddock, both what you call the red zone and amber zone. So yeah, at this stage we've got some really early sown Vixen wheat that's, been head frosted. We think from maybe late July the rest of, at this stage is looking okay. There's a little bit of frost throughout.
It's definitely some barley, that's got some frost through it. But yeah, we've got a couple of pretty cool nights at the moment which which we're of wondering whether we'll do any damage. We've got some plots there that have been ripped through with a ripper it's a sand over clay, soil type.
But at the moment is extremely wet but yeah, anecdotally or what we're picking up with those ripping treatments is that the the soil temperature's able to hold more warmth in the soil and which is affecting the canopy temperatures as well.
Around the place with colleagues and clients, farmers locally have experienced anywhere that we've done their amelioration. We've seen lower incidents of frost and where the frost hasn't impacted it quite as bad compared to where we haven't had that carried out.
We can set, we're picking up some pretty interesting stuff there. Hopefully, we've got a bit more to talk about with the local farmers when we have a field day in a couple of weeks.
Tanja Morgan: We'll definitely check in with , AIR E P and what's happening in that space and how the treatments turn out at the end of the season.
And fingers crossed you keep getting rain and no frost. Thanks very much for joining us today, Josh. I really appreciate your time, especially coming to us from the top of a paddock while you're sweeping crops. Good stuff.
Josh Hollitt: My pleasure. Thanks for that, Tanja. Hopefully for guys over your way and yeah, for all the farmers around we, we can hold onto some pretty good yield potential and and get it in the bin. So fingers crossed.
Tanja Morgan: Absolutely. Thanks again.
Tanja Morgan: We are joined now by Kenton porker. Who's the research director at far Australia, and he's leading a new GDC investment looking at enhancing frost, tolerance and avoidance in wheat barley and canola crops through in season agronomic manipulation. Welcome Kenton. Tell us what that's all about.
Kenton Porker: Thanks for having me. So what it's really about, it's looking at things we can do in season. So how can we actually reduce frost damage in our, let's say early sown crops, under higher risk scenarios with things that we can actually do in season whether that's manipulating crop development, whether that's spraying protective applications of products or anything that might improve tolerance, to frost in season.
Tanja Morgan: Oh, well, there's lots of really cool options there for us to look at. So who's involved with the project and where can we see this work?
Kenton Porker: So it's actually a large national project, right from New South Wales through to WA so in WA really the protectants and looking at tolerance of different products is led by DPIRD Emanuel and Brenton Leske.
And then in the eastern states FAR Australia have a number of sites there's sites on the EP with Andrew Ware there's a site at new south Wales DPI and Birchip cropping group in the middle of the wimmera as well. So I guess it's early days we'll start to see some trial results come out of this season.
I think it's important to point out this season's really about trying to learn what's out there trying to learn proof of concept, what we, what may or may not work.
We're sort at a point with frost where, we just have to start doing good experiments where we rule some of these things in and out to try and get some actual tangible solutions.
Tanja Morgan: So how soon do you think some of this work will actually start to help growers?
Kenton Porker: Good question. There's a chance it might not work. So that's important to recognize that, but I think we'll have a good idea by the end of this season, whether there's any potential products already on the shelf that will show growers, actually got some improved tolerance or protectance. Some of the strategies around defoliation and delaying flowering time might take a bit more technical skill, a little bit more logistical skill to see if they will work or not.
And I think that's a longer game. So two to three years I think would have some pretty good understanding.
Tanja Morgan: And out of all the things that you're looking at, what do you think are your best bets so far you leaning towards any
Kenton Porker: I'm not leaning towards any I'm. I think one of the big challenges we got everything we do to manipulate flowering time or manipulate frost tolerance also affects growth so much.
So I think we might end up getting to a point where, we can achieve. Reduce frost, or we can, maybe we can avoid frost, but we might just have to accept that we've reduced our yield potential a little bit. So I guess it's in those really high risk areas. It's having a discussion with growers.
What's the percent yield potential they're willing to sacrifice to reduce the risk of frost. And I think we can reduce the risk of frost, but I don't think we can do it at the same time as maintaining some of our yield potentials that we might expect.
Tanja Morgan: How long will this project go for and where can we find out more about it if people wanna follow along?
Kenton Porker: So we've got three years of field trials we're in the first year. So we're looking at 2023 field trials, 2024 field trials. And we are building an online database where we expect to put all the trials up. So you'll be able to go
online. They'll also go into online farm trials and we'll have a bit of a social media campaign.
I'd like to think the results will be pretty easily accessible and we'll distribute them out through MSF and the farming systems groups.
Tanja Morgan: Fantastic. Thanks for joining us today. Kenton, I think any project that really helps farmers look at tangible options that they can work with is, you know, really good progression forward. yeah. Look forward to hearing more about it in the future.
Kenton Porker: Yeah. Thank you. And I encourage growers to getting in touch with you Tanja if they're doing things that. They think might contribute to the project. We probably have scope to test some of those things, experimentally and help growers. Any feedback at this stage it's early days, so it's welcome.
Tanja Morgan: And we are definitely happy to receive phone calls from growers on that and have those discussions. Thanks again.
Kenton Porker: Good stuff. Thank you.
So that wraps up a better frost decisions podcast for September. Don't forget if you're looking for more information, we have a better frost decisions, Facebook page, and we'd love to have you on board. We hope you don't need us, but we're here if you do.
This project is brought to you by the GRDC applying current knowledge to inform grower decision-making to mitigate the impact of frost now in the future.