Independent Consultants Australia Network (ICAN)

Latest information from ICAN

Dubbo, Coolah and Spring Plains GRDC Grains Research Updates on next week

22nd February 2019

They are on next week! With a fantastic line up of speakers and topics, we are excited to be hitting the road next week for the Dubbo, Coolah and Spring Plains GRDC Grains Research Updates. Hope to see you there!

Places are still available

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Herbicide workshops - August workshops in Victoria and WA now open!

21st February 2019

July/August herbicide workshops have just opened for registration! New locations include Bendigo, Horhsam, Geraldton, Wongan Hills, Merredin and York.

Places are still available for the Wudinna, Cummins, Maitland, K atanning, Albany, Esperance and Perth workshops in Feb/March/April, however the Clare workshop is now full and closed to further registrations.

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Registration now open for the February/March 2018 GRDC Grains Research Updates

6th December 2018

Registration is now open and agendas available for the 2019 GRDC Grains Research Updates. A fantastic line up of speakers addressing regional topics to set you up for the comming season.

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Soils Resources Available

17th October 2017

The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) has invested in a project with The University of Sydney to develop the soil science knowledge of advisors to the grains industry. Experiential learning is crucial to this goal. To this end, a series of workshops will be conducted to examine local issues with local growers and agronomists, with the workshop material developing into a resource library for future users.

In early October, three workshops were run in collaboration with the University of NSW, in the northern grains region. The topic was ‘Plant available soil water’, and the potential for EMI (Electro Magnetic Induction) tools to help develop soil property maps, site-specific crop management zones and real time spatial soil water maps.

These well attended, practical workshops discussed the range of technologies available to measure soil water.

Subsequent to these events, a number of resources have been made available.

University of Sydney researcher, Dr Derek Yates has compiled an e-book entitled ‘Soil knowledge for sustainable grain production’, an accompaniment to the workshops.

“This e-book is intended to be a resource of soil science knowledge”, said Dr Yates. ‘The book is presented from an issues perspective rather than a traditional, discipline based textbook, with extensive internal and external linking allowing users to choose the information or topic of interest and follow the knowledge trail as far as they see fit’. While most tablet PC’s and phones have eBook readers, an e-book reader may be needed to view this document on desktop PC’s.

Associate Professor John Triantafilis and his team at UNSW Sydney have a web-based Geographic Information System (GIS), terraGIS that allows access to digital biophysical data (e.g. soil, water and hydrological properties) collected and generated as part of a series of Cotton Research and Development Corporation projects entitled ‘Understanding the salinity threat in the irrigated cotton growing areas of Australia’. Biophysical data is available in seven irrigated cotton growing areas (Toobeah, Ashley, Wee Waa and Gunnedah, Trangie and Warren & Bourke) located in five catchments (Macintyre, Gwydir, Namoi, Macquarie & Darling).

“TerraGIS is a fabulous first-stop digital soil mapping (DSM) shop, because it represents a large range of DSM on soil physical (e.g. clay and soil texture), chemical (e.g. cation exchange capacity and exchangeable sodium percentage) and hydrological (e.g. available water content) properties. The DSM were developed from district scale EMI and gamma-ray spectrometry (radiometric) surveys conducted and laboratory analysed soil data from a selected number of sites and over many years of field work. The DSM are free to use and a good source of information for a large number of farmers and cover an area of 400,000 ha.” said Associate Professor Triantafilis.

Click here to download the soil knowledge for sustainable grain production e-book
Click here to go to terraGIS

Further Information:
Derek Yates: 0431 755 435 derek.yates@sydney.edu.au
John Triantafilis: 0437087 983 j.triantafilis@unsw.edu.au
GRDC project US00069