Works in this collection were published by the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia.
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Canola agronomy research in Western Australia
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Western Australia; Jackie Bucat; and Andrew Blake
The Tactical Break Crop Agronomy Project and the Achieving Stable and High Canola Yield Across the Rainfall Zones of WA Project were initiatives originating from a Western Panel Spring Tour of the low rainfall zone. The panel was focussed on investing in research and development ... Read more
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Improving subtropical grass pastures on the south coast of Western Australia
Paul Sanford, Ron Master, and Eric Dobbe
This bulletin reports on the findings of a research project funded by DPIRD and MLA that investigated methods to improve legume content and increase production of both kikuyuand panic-based pastures on the south coast of WA.
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2017 Barley variety fact sheets for Western Australia
Blakely Paynter, Georgia Trainor, Raj Malik, Jeremy Curry, Sanjiv Gupta, Daniel Huberli, Sarah J. Collins, Harmohinder Dhammu, and Ben Biddulph
This bulletin is designed to highlight the agronomic traits (plant height, head loss risk, grain yield, disease resistance, phenology and herbicide tolerance) present in malt, food and feed barley varieties of relevance to Western Australian barley growers. Each varietal fact sheet also contains comments about ... Read more
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2018 Barley variety sowing guide for Western Australia
Blakely Paynter, Georgia Trainor, and Jeremy Curry
This variety guide is designed as a reference to help determine which barley variety to grow in your region. It provides market feedback, relative grain yield comparisons, disease ratings, agronomic information and herbicide tolerance ratings for all malt barley varieties segregated in Western Australia (WA) ... Read more
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Market opportunities for WA fruits
Manju Radhakrishnan
The purpose of this analysis was to identify potential high-value markets for selected WA fruits. The limited size of the domestic market, coupled with slowing population growth, makes a robust increase in export necessary to achieve the aspirational goal of ‘doubling the value of agriculture’ ... Read more
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2016 Barley variety fact sheets for Western Australia
Blakely Paynter, Georgia Trainor, Sanjiv Gupta, Sarah J. Collins, Harmohinder Dhammu, and Ben Biddulph
This bulletin is designed to highlight the agronomic traits (grain yield, disease resistance, phenology, herbicide tolerance) present in malt, food and feed barley varieties of relevance to Western Australian barley growers. Each varietal fact sheet also contains comments about market use, target seed rate in ... Read more
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2017 Barley variety sowing guide for Western Australia
Blakely Paynter and Georgia Trainor
This variety guide is designed as a reference to help determine which barley variety to grow in your region. It provides market feedback, relative grain yield comparisons, disease ratings, agronomic information and herbicide tolerance ratings for all malt and food barley varieties segregated in Western ... Read more
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Bioenergy and carbon farming opportunities in the Pilbara
Robert Sudmeyer, Kim Brooksbank, and David Rogers
The Pilbara region covers 270 000 square kilometres of north-west Western Australia. Its main agricultural land use is pastoralism, with beef cattle grazing native pastures. Currently, only 24km2 is under irrigation, with irrigated fodder the principal crop, but this could expand to 100km2. This expansion ... Read more
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Climate change: impacts and adaptation for agriculture in Western Australia
Robert Anthony Sudmeyer, Alexandra Edward, Vic Fazakerley, Leigh Simpkin, and Ian Foster
This bulletin reviews the latest scientific information relating to climate change and agriculture (broadacre, livestock, horticulture, pastoral industries) in Western Australia.
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Climate in the Pilbara
Robert Sudmeyer
The Pilbara is characterised by very hot summers, mild winters and low and variable rainfall. It is classified as hot desert in northern and inland areas and hot grasslands in the north-west. The Pilbara claims a number of climate records:
- seven of Western Australia’s ... Read more
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Climate-ready agriculture: a situation statement for Western Australia
Robert Anthony Sudmeyer, Anne Bennett, and Melanie Strawbridge
Projected future changes in the state’s climate will present new challenges for our producers. The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) continues to work with agricultural industries to lay solid foundations for an agricultural sector that has a range of response options.
This ... Read more
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Comparative assessment of crops to use potential additional water resources in the Warren–Donnelly catchments
James Dee and Ananda Ghose
Through the Royalties for Regions funded Southern Forests Water Futures Project, the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia undertook a study to understand the economic benefits of developing new water resources in the Warren–Donnelly catchments in the south-west of Western Australia.
The Warren–Donnelly catchments ... Read more
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Markets for Western Australian seed potatoes
Manju Radhakrishnan and Peter Dawson
Western Australia has a major share (70%) in seed potato exports from Australia. However, exports from WA have declined by 56% from 3703 tonnes in 2010 to 1302 tonnes in 2015. In addition, Australia experienced a fall in the consumption of potatoes during recent years ... Read more
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Renewable chemicals and bioproducts: a potential for agricultural diversification and economic development
Henry Brockman
Renewable chemicals are a new category of novel products: building blocks and ingredients for the production of chemicals produced from renewable feedstock and sustainable advanced manufacturing processes, leaving a smaller environmental footprint than traditional petrochemicals. Biologically based products are mainly non-food products derived from biomass.
... Read more -
2016 Barley variety sowing guide for Western Australia
Blakely Paynter, Georgia Trainor, Sanjiv Gupta, Sarah J. Collins, and Harmohinder Dhammu
This sowing variety guide is designed as a reference to help determine which barley variety to grow in your region. It provides market feedback, relative grain yield comparisons, disease ratings, agronomic information and herbicide tolerance ratings for all malting and food barley varieties segregated in ... Read more
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Making better fertiliser decisions for cropping systems in Western Australia. Soil test – crop response relationships and critical soil test values and ranges
Geoff Anderson, Ross Brennan, Richard Bell, and Wen Chen
The better fertiliser decisions for cropping project (BFDC) (2009-2012) was completed to provide comprehensive information to improve fertiliser decisions for the cropping industry in Australia (Speirs et al. 2013a). The WA component provides interpretation of results from crop nutrient application experiments for the WA cropping ... Read more
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Biomass scoping study: opportunities for agriculture in Western Australia
Kim Brooksbank, Mitchell Lever, Harriet Paterson, and Melissa Weybury
This 2014 report aims to provide a summary of national and international activity in the use of agricultural by-products for the production of bioenergy and biofuels. The summary is primarily an internal report for the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA), but will ... Read more
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Carbon farming in relation to Western Australian agriculture
Robert Sudmeyer, Jackson Parker, Tanmoy Nath, and Ananda Ghose
Carbon farming activities need to return multiple economic and environmental co-benefits to be attractive to land managers. This bulletin summarises concepts underlying carbon farming, how Australia accounts for greenhouse gas emissions and the potential for Western Australian land managers to participate in, and benefit from, ... Read more
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Market opportunities for Western Australian mandarins and oranges
Manju Radhakrishnan
Citrus growing in Western Australian (WA) is concentrated north and south of Perth and in the north around Kununurra and Carnarvon. WA currently produces about 18 000 tonnes (t) of citrus each year. Most production is sold on the local Perth market, with negligible exports. ... Read more
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Soil acidity : a guide for WA farmers and consultants.
Chris Gazey, Stephen Davies, and Ron Master
Our first edition of Soil acidity: a guide for WA farmers and consultants in 2009 was a significant publication which brought together current knowledge on the management of soil acidity in WA in a user-friendly book. Three thousand printed copies were distributed and an interactive ... Read more
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The agronomy jigsaw: Finding the pieces that maximise water use efficiency
David Hall; Paul Galloway; Jeremy Lemon; Ben Curtis; Andrew van Burgel; Kelly Kong; and Nigel Metz,
The Agronomy Jigsaw project is an initiative of the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) in collaboration with the South East Premium Wheat Growers Association (SEPWA) and Precision Agronomics Australia (PAA). The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) funded the project under the ... Read more
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Audit of WA agricultural lime quality 2013
Chris Gazey
Applying agricultural lime is the most economical way of ameliorating low soil pH in broadscale agriculture in Western Australia (WA). In WA, agricultural lime is usually limesand from coastal sand dunes, crushed limestone from coastal deposits or crushed dolomitic lime (usually marketed as dolomite) from ... Read more
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Effect of smoke in grape and wine production
Kristen Brodison
Smoke exposure of grapevines and the development of smoke-related characteristics in the resulting wines is an increasing issue for the wine industry. As Australia faces a warming climate with more bushfires, smoke exposure in vineyards is becoming more regular.
Wines made from grapes exposed to ... Read more
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Establishment guide for sub-tropical grasses : key steps to success
Geoff Allan Moore, Ronald J. Yates, Phil Barrett-Lennard, Phil Nichols, Brad Wintle, John Titterington, and Chris Loo
Sub-tropical perennial grasses are now widely sown in the Northern Agricultural region (NAR) and on the south coast of Western Australia (WA). Since 2000, more than 50 000 ha have been sown to perennial grasses in the NAR and about 150 000 ha on the ... Read more
