TERN-delivered soil and landscape data have been incorporated into a leading agricultural decision-support tool that’s helping farmers achieve more from their land and limited resources, such as rain and nutrients.
An exciting new industry collaboration between TERN, CSIRO and Birchip Cropping Group Inc., a not-for-profit agricultural research and extension organisation led by Victorian farmers, has led to data from TERN’s Soil Samples and Landscape Grid of Australia being incorporated into the Yield Prophet® decision support tool.
Yield Prophet® is an on-line crop production tool designed to present grain growers and consultants with real-time information about their crops, providing integrated production risk advice and monitoring decision support relevant to farm management. It uses CSIRO’s Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) to create crop simulations and reports to assist in decision making around yield, climate and soil water risk, nitrogen and irrigation applications and more.
“A number of farmers told us that they find it challenging to select the right soil characterisation when setting up a new paddock,” says Claire Browne of Birchip Cropping Group Inc.
“To address this we incorporated data from TERN’s Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia and now Yield Prophet® users can simply select the location of their paddock from a map and the tool does the rest.”
The new feature of Yield Prophet® models the previous year’s growing season and summer fallow to provide estimated starting points for soil nutrients (nitrogen) and water in the current year. It allows users to set up a paddock based on soil test results or no field tests at all.
“Having soil test results for the current season will always provide the most accurate modelling, but we understand that this isn’t always possible,” says Claire.
“The addition of the TERN soil research data collection has significantly improved the tool and the ability for its users to easily and quickly make informed decisions for the increased farm productivity.”
- TERN’s Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia combines historical data with information from satellites and other sensors to map the soils and landscape across Australia. The Grid is also available via Google Earth Engine. More information here: www.clw.csiro.au/aclep/soilandlandscapegrid/
- For more information on Yield Prophet® please contact the BCG office on (03) 5492 2787 or email yieldprophet@bcg.org.au
