Twenty kilometres north of Lake Mulwala where the topography is flat and the soil is red, Craig and Fiona Marshall have crops that yield agronomic benchmarking data as well as grain.

Before harvest, one wheat crop earmarked for agronomic benchmarking in 2021 and visible from the Marshalls’ house changed slowly from lush green to golden yellow as mild spring conditions lingered.

Standing in this filling crop during early November, while storm clouds gathered on the horizon, these Rennie, New South Wales, grain growers spoke about what inspires them.

“Watching the LRPB Kittyhawk change on a daily basis into a high-yielding wheat crop lifts our spirits,” Fiona says. “Seeing it grow and improve every day is inspiring.”

The LRPB Kittyhawk wheat on Craig and Fiona’s farm is in one of the paddocks monitored as part of GRDC’s Hyper Yielding Crops (HYC) initiative.

The HYC initiative is a national GRDC investment, led by Field Applied Research Australia, that aims to explore the germplasm and management practices specific for high-yielding environments.

For the past two years, Fiona and Craig have nurtured and watched one paddock more closely than all others. The couple’s aim, with the help of Riverine Plains project officer Kate Coffey, has been to gather the intelligence needed to refine their agronomy.

Craig and Fiona’s 164-hectare crop on a paddock called ‘Pine Hills’ won a 2020 HYC award for the ‘Highest Percentage of Potential Yield’ in NSW after yielding 6.71 tonnes per hectare of Scepter wheat compared to a biophysically calculated potential of 7.77t/ha.

However, with superior conditions in 2021, the Marshalls had high hopes their LRPB Kittyhawk award crop would yield even more grain.

Not long after HYC award crops are harvested, and the yields are verified with weighbridge tickets, a small amount of grain from each paddock is sent for nutrient analysis.

For GRDC Southern Panel member and HYC extension lead Jon Midwood, of TechCrop Services, a huge amount of time and effort goes into scrutinising all the data gathered from the 65 grower collaborators across Australia.

Data collected from each paddock includes soil type and texture, paddock history, operational timings, nutrient status, agronomy, plant-available water, temperature and radiation.

For Craig and Fiona, the HYC agronomy benchmarking program is a valuable investment that allows them to test and refine the ‘tweaks’ needed to push wheat yields and profits higher.

For example, after discovering their award-winning 2020 Scepter crop had the potential for a higher grain yield, the nitrogen applied to their 2021 LRPB Kittyhawk award crop was significantly increased.

Before harvest, Craig said all the family’s wheat, including the LRPB Kittyhawk wheat planted on the 2021 award paddock, looked excellent.

“Our 2021 wheat yields could be higher than they were in 2020, which would be amazing,” he said. “It is going to be really interesting to see the affect the [wet] weather will have on our harvest.”

More information: Craig and Fiona Marshall, redbank615@bigpond.com