2020
Ripping and spading improved pulse crop yields at Lameroo Authors: Michael Moodie Research Team: Chris Davies and Todd McDonald 1 Frontier Farming Systems Funded By: Murraylands and Riverland Landscapes Board Project Title: Improving groundcover options with legume production in sands Peer Review: Tanja Morgan Key Words: Soil amelioration, sandy soils, lentil, chickpea, lupin, faba bean, vetch and field pea
Key Messages ● ● ● ●
Ameliorating sandy soils by spading, deep ripping or combinations of the two resulted in large grain yield benefits to all pulse crops except for lupins. The grain yield of chickpea, field pea and faba beans grown on ameliorated sandy soil was equivalent or more than the yield achieved by lupins grown without spading or ripping. Soil amelioration increased vegetative groundcover for lentil, vetch and field pea, but generally reduced groundcover in lupins due to variable crop establishment. The gross margin of all pulse crops except for lupins increased by more than $400/ha following the amelioration of sandy soils.
Background The Murraylands and Riverland Landscapes Board and Mallee Sustainable Farming have identified that legume crops grown on sandy soils in the SA region are providing sub-optimal levels of both productivity and vegetative ground cover protection. The consequence of this is that the soil condition benefits provided by the legume crop during the growing season are rapidly lost due to subsequent wind erosion on these soils. This leaves the soil vulnerable to ongoing erosion and can lead to reduced productivity and groundcover protection of subsequent crops. This project aims to explore and develop methods and practices that will improve longer term groundcover retention on sandy soils where legumes are grown regularly in the rotation. This included investigating which legume crops are most suitable to be grown on sandy soils and evaluation of management practices landholders could implement to maximise biomass and stubble generation and persistence. In the first year of the project, deep ripping sandy soils prior to sowing increased growth and production of legume crops by 22-63%. In 2020, trials were expanded to include spading as an alternative option to address physical soil constraints to legume growth on Mallee sandy soils.
About the trial The 2020 trial site was located 10 km north west of Lameroo. Within the paddock the site is located on a very sandy soil type (Table 1) with non-wetting characteristics.