Mitigation Strategies
Potential climate mitigation strategies modelled for the National Grains Life Cycle Assessment project include;
Strategy | Explanation |
---|---|
Sustainable intensification | This mitigation strategy assessed the climate impacts of increasing N fertiliser inputs so wheat yields reached the water-limited yield potential (WLYP). The WLYP was taken from the Yield Gap Australia project (www.yieldgapaustralia.com.au), the model assumed additional N was applied as urea and assumed the partial factor productivity of applied N was 55 kg wheat per kg N applied |
Increasing lime inputs | This strategy assumed that the frequency of lime applications doubled to that of average regional practice. It was only modelled for regions that were dominated by acid soils. |
Implementing variable rate technology (VRT) for fertiliser | This strategy assumed that the implementation of VRT reduced fertiliser inputs for a wheat crop by 20% compared to the baseline system. |
Adding legumes in rotation | Legumes are regularly incorporated into cropping rotations so this strategy tested the assumption that replacing a wheat crop with a legume crop any benefiting from the additional N fixed by the legume offset the impacts of using synthetic fertiliser in wheat system |
More specific information is available in the results from each agro-ecological zone (AEZ) accessed by clicking the links in the table above.
Data sources
Many data sources were used to assess the impacts of crop production. Face-to-face interviews were held with regional experts such as agronomists, consultants and researchers in each AEZ. They provided data such as crop yields, rate and timing of farm chemical applications, rate and frequency of soil amendments, and fertiliser inputs. Other data sources used were statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and publically available research databases. Data from all sources were compared and data selected to assess the impacts of crop production for “common practice” throughout the zone.