Canola production has a risky reputation but taking a longer-term view of its role in farming systems and underpinning this with up-to-date research can mitigate risk.

Although canola is Australia’s third-most-important grain crop, it is often perceived to be riskier to produce than cereals due to its lower water use efficiency, higher nitrogen requirement and extra machinery costs.

The need to de-risk canola production led GRDC to invest in a sequence of large projects. These were to firstly optimise canola production by understanding canola physiology and matching tactical agronomic management to improve production and, secondly, to learn how to position canola in the cropping sequence to improve farming efficiency, specifically in central and southern New South Wales.

Since 2014, CSIRO, with GRDC investment, has been working with researchers from the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI), South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) – together with regional advisers and growers – to address canola production issues. It began with the ‘Optimised Canola Profitability’ (OCP) project and subsequently the ‘Improving farming systems efficiency in southern NSW’ project.

Optimised canola profitability

This project incorporated both research and extension components and spanned nine regions across eastern Australia. Annual intensive experiments in specified regions at well-characterised field sites investigated phenological development, physiological adaptation, response to stress timing and severity and windrowing timing to improve agronomic understanding, improve varietal adaptation and profitability.

Experimental outcomes were incorporated and validated into the modelling platform Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) and used to extrapolate the outcomes over more sites and seasons.

Several canola production resources were developed and further extension occurred at GRDC Updates, field days and a roadshow series at the end of the project.

By better understanding the drivers of development, flowering time and the critical period for grain yield development, tactical agronomy advice was delivered for robust, high-yielding early sowing systems, reduced production risk and improved harvest management.

An independent impact survey of 90 consultants at the end of the OCP project indicated that about 68 per cent had made significant practice changes with their clients as a result of the research, with improvements in profitability estimated to be worth $74 million per annum to the Australian industry.

The earlier-sowing systems developed in the project provided variety and sowing date advice and agronomic packages for sowing in early to mid-April rather than in late April. These systems have been shown to provide average yield benefits of about 0.4 tonnes per hectare (often up to 1t/ha).

Major yield penalties occurred when fast-maturing varieties were sown too early, and the industry was alerted to this risk.

Regression tree analysis suggested early sowing systems with an appropriate agronomy package could improve gross margin by $60 to $100/ha. Consultants reported the improved agronomic advice related to early sowing systems was worth up to $200/ha.

To reduce risk in the low-rainfall zones, the focus was on maintaining profit rather than pursuing higher yield. It was determined that sowing opportunistically using a set of rules on conditions for successful establishment increased profit and reduced risk. In these riskier environments, the yield advantage for hybrid varieties had to be 20 per cent above open-pollinated varieties to justify the increased seed costs.

The project also determined that simple changes to nitrogen management in response to season type offered significant advantages for both profit and risk, despite an overall need to increase nitrogen inputs in most season types.

New harvest recommendations from the project showed that windrowing should occur when 60 to 80 per cent of seed sampled from the middle third of branches and main stem have changed colour – a revelation emerging from the fact that 80 per cent of the yield arises from branches and not the main stem.

Yield increases of up to 55 per cent and oil increases of eight per cent could arise from these new recommendations. Delaying harvest past that stage could reduce seed size and increase shattering (less in shatter-tolerant varieties).

Improving farming systems efficiency

To further de-risk canola production and capture full value from the crop, the OCP findings have been followed up in the context of longer-term crop sequence/farming systems in the ‘Improving farming systems efficiency’ project, which began with GRDC investment in 2017.

Canola plays a valuable role in crop sequences as a break crop reducing pest, weed and disease levels. In this respect, canola’s profitability needs to be put in context with the farm gross margin over more than one season. Related decision-making (such as nitrogen supply) needs to be considered for better managing production risk of the entire farming system.

With GRDC investment, CSIRO collaborated with NSW DPI to establish farming systems experiments at four sites across southern and central NSW, Wagga Wagga, Greenethorpe, Condobolin and Urana. Grower and adviser collaborators nominated the baseline systems for each site, which included either canola/wheat/wheat or canola/wheat/barley sequences sown from late April to early May (timely) and a conservative or low (decile-two) nitrogen strategy.

These were compared with a range of more-diverse cropping sequences that involved legume/canola/wheat and compared different legume options. These were high-value legumes (lentils and chickpeas), low-value legumes (lupins and faba beans) and a multiple-end-use forage option (vetch) grazed and/or cut for hay.

This ‘double-break’ provides improved weed management options and positions canola after the legume to provide legacy water and nitrogen benefits to de-risk the canola.

As a measure of profitability, the average annual earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) were calculated over three seasons for the different farming systems; this ranged from $200 to $1200 per hectare.

From 2018 to 2020 at Wagga Wagga, Greenethorpe, Condobolin and Urana, the experiments showed there were diverse farming systems involving legumes that achieved $150 to $250/ha more than the baseline May-sown and grain-only canola/wheat/barley or grain-only canola/wheat/wheat.

Table 1 shows examples for a low-value and a high-value diverse cropping sequence compared to the baseline.

Table 1: Profitability (average annual earnings before interest and tax, EBIT $/ha) for the Baseline systems (wheat/canola/wheat) or (wheat/canola/barley) compared to Diverse crop sequences which include either low-value (lupins/faba beans) or higher-value (lentils/chickpeas) in a double-break with canola. All systems sown in early May with conservative nitrogen strategy (targeting decile 2 yield). The economics have been calculated based on the actual costs and process (Spot) for the years 2018–20, or the long-term average costs and process (LTA).

Source: CSIRO

Despite some extreme seasonal differences – 2018 and 2019 had very low rainfall (decile 1-2) whereas 2020 was high (decile 8-9) – the profit and efficiency in terms of dollars per millimetre of rainfall can be lifted by making some simple, but targeted, changes to cropping sequence, sowing time and nitrogen strategy.

There is no single recipe to improve returns, but a range of ways to achieve a profit lift that will be suitable for farms with and without livestock, and operators who may or may not be willing to grow pulse crops.

Of the non-grazed farming systems, the most consistently profitable systems generally were the timely sown legume/canola/wheat with a decile-two nitrogen strategy, which were more profitable than the baseline, had lower risk, lower input costs (nitrogen and herbicides) and maintained lower levels of weeds and disease.

More information: Dr John Kirkegaard, 0458 354 630, johnkirkegaard@csiro.au, @AgroJAK

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