RAINFALL STUDY SEEKS SWEET KNOWLEDGE

Mackay district canegrowers hope to increase their knowledge about the impact of rainfall on their crop with help from the Queensland Government.

Minister for Natural Resources and Water Minister Craig Wallace said in conjunction with the Mackay Whitsunday Natural Resource Management group, scientists from the department were working on rainfall simulation studies on a sugar cane farm at Eton.

Mr Wallace said catchments containing cane farming, grazing, urban and natural forest were all monitored during the early stages of the study.

“The cane country did produce higher nutrient and herbicide levels than forest or grazing country so now they are using a paddock scale trial to see if some of the new cane management practices can reduce nutrient and herbicide losses,” Mr Wallace said.

Mr Wallace said importantly, the study would reveal the differences in row spacing systems and the differences between putting nutrients on top of the soil and putting it into the soil.

MWNRM Group implementation manager Will Higham said farmers had pioneered many new cane framing practices over the last few years.

“We would like to know if any of these practices provide water quality benefits as well as production and economic benefits,” Mr Higham said.

“The Mackay Whitsunday Natural Resource Management group has provided over $1.5 million dollars in Sustainable Landscapes incentives to cane farmers and graziers.

“These rainfall simulation studies will help us to decide which management practices to offer incentives for in the future.”

North Eton canegrower Gerry Deguara welcomed the opportunity to provide a six hectare area of his farm to be involved in the project.

“This project needs to be done - the more information we have the better,” Mr Deguara said.

“Hopefully we’ll see if there’s any difference in the permanent bed system as opposed to single rows.”

The project has studied the performance of different nutrient and herbicide application techniques on two farming systems, under a simulated 100mm/hr rainstorm.

One farming system used conventional tillage, with 1.5m row spacing and single row sugar cane, while the other system involved minimum till control traffic farming with 2m rows, matched to the axle size of harvesting and haul out vehicles, and dual row sugar cane.

The data collected will complement the larger scale water quality monitoring being undertaken in the region.

Photographs of work being carried out in the field available on request.

Media inquiries: Paul Childs, Craig Wallace’s office, on 3896 3689 or 0407 131 654.