French student Sebastien Sester is undertaking a six month practice-orientated internship at BCG, examining agronomic and farming systems research as part of his Masters of Science at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
As part of his work experience Sebastien is providing fortnightly updates to his course supervisor. These updates also provide a valuable international perspective to BCG and our members.
Sebastien’s report from the past fortnight (July 15-31) follows:
Agriculture Victoria, long-term trials and the role of the agronomist
By Sebastien Sester
Another two weeks have passed and I am now less than two months away from finishing my internship. It is exciting and scary at the same time.
The winter routine is well established around Birchip. More rain continues to come, keeping farmers’ hopes for a good season alive and keeping people happy in the community. We have had 142mm from January to June and 95mm of growing season rainfall (April to June). Consequently, crops generally look good throughout the region.
Some diseases (blackleg in canola, Spot Form on Net Blotch in barley, ascochyta blight, botrytis grey mould in pulses) and pests (blue oat mite, red legged earth mite, caterpillar, aphids) have been identified, but farmers are usually able to keep them below the economic threshold.
Weeds, in opposition, are a much larger problem and are responsible for the most important yield reductions. With crops and weeds growing, and crop canopies closing, the range of herbicides to select from is now reduced.
In addition, windy and damp conditions have inhibited the ability of farmers to undertake timely sprays. Nevertheless, well-established crops should now be more competitive against weeds.
A few cereal paddocks look light-coloured or ‘yellowish’ at the moment. This is because farmers were not able to supply nitrogen on time due to wet conditions or shortage of inputs.
I also had a chance to spend some time at different companies/organisations and get an idea about what they are doing for the agricultural sector.
At Horsham in the Wimmera I toured the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR) research facilities and trials.
The highlights were a new seed bank which stores a very wide range of Australian and world species, wild accessions, old varieties and commercial crops used for breeding and research purposes. Once again it is all about diversity there.
The Department also has a genomics area, where plants are photographed and scanned on a fully-automated conveyor belt system – a very impressive but expensive system.
Among the trials I visited was a 100-year old wheat rotation trial. It was interesting to see that an equilibrium between micro-organisms, crops and insects has been found, although the system did not seem very healthy and resilient.
Because this rotation is no longer relevant to modern farming practices in the Wimmera, a new long-term trial was established in 1998, aiming to examining long term effects of tillage practice and rotation on grain yield, soil nitrogen and carbon: The Sustainable Cropping Rotations In Mediterranean Environments experiment (SCRIME). This trial provides valuable insight on the long term effects of different crop rotations.
I also visited the Australian Grains Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (AGFACE) facility. In this trial, researchers are measuring the effects of a changing climate through field experiments in which additional carbon dioxide is released onto test crops.
This is the location of Australia’s main FACE experiment for grain crops.
Over three years, CO² levels equivalent to those expected by 2050 caused a 25 per cent increase in both biomass and grain yield when averaged across a range of agronomic treatments including supplementary irrigation. This is perhaps the only benefit of climate change…?
I also spent a day with canola and wheat breeders working for Bayer Seeds. Facilities, machinery and technologies used by this company are simply astonishing. I may not totally agree with Bayer’s vision of conventional and input-based agriculture, but Bayer and similar multi-national companies clearly contributed to the development of modern agricultural practices and global yield increase.
The last day of my learning-experience week, I spent with an agronomist and we visited his clients.
On a daily basis, the agronomist visits four or five farmers and does crop inspections on their paddocks. His goals is to give recommendations and advice to help the farmer grow a good crop.
I quickly realised that trust and good relationships are key elements. Indeed, I noticed that one of the farmer entirely relies on the adviser and follows the recommendations word for word, without even questioning it. This puts a lot of pressure on the advisor, as he could cause yield losses or even kill the farmer’s crop if he makes incorrect recommendations. This probably explains why the company he works for has insurance, although despite a career spanning 20 years the agronomist has not had to use it. Consequently, the agronomist is known to be good and trustworthy.
Critically, I could say that the advisor is more a ‘chemist’ or a ‘salesman’ than an ‘agronomist’. Indeed the only recommendations he formulated were different chemical brews for weed, pest or disease control in the form of a receipt that the farmer would have to hand in at the supplier.
Agronomists still play a central role in providing advice and knowledge to farmers, thanks to their expertise and experience. They also provide an external point of view on the farm, which is often very valuable.
The adviser told me that every paddock is different and recommendations will vary accordingly. There is no set recipe.Â
More of Sebastien’s reports can be found here.
