Growing eight tonnes a hectare of irrigated wheat in southern NSW

Summary

This Primefact outlines a nitrogen management strategy which minimises the risk of overvegetative and lodged crops. This nitrogen management strategy has been combined with the latest ‘Irrigated Wheatcheck’ best management practices. This combination greatly increases the ability to grow high yielding profitable wheat crops for each hectare and each megalitre of water.

This Primefact includes information on the best management practices or ‘checks’ for growing 8 t/ha wheat yields. The key checks are:

• monitoring
• irrigation layout
• paddock history
• soil structure
• subsoil moisture
• nitrogen at pre-sowing and at sowing
• sowing date
• variety selection
• fertiliser at sowing
• plant establishment
• weed control
• crop nitrogen at late tillering
• crop nitrogen at head emergence
• soil moisture at stem elongation
• three green leaves at flowering
• Wheatcheck recording