Soil Quality
Articles
Yield limiting factors in relation to precision agriculture along the South Coast of WA
Author
Derk Bakker, Grey Poulish and Dan Murphy
Published
23 July 2007
The South Coast region (SCR) of WA, incorporating the southern part of the Katanning region, and the Albany, Jerramungup and Esperance regions, comprises an area of about 5 million ha. The region experiences a strong seasonal Mediterranean climate with cool, wet winters and hot summers. The rainfall in the region ranges from 700-800 mm near the coast to 300 –350 mm at a distance of 150 to 200 km from the coast. The soils in the region range from deep siliceous sands, Fleming gravelly sands on clay to grey clays. Crops grown in the region include wheat, barley, canola, lupins, oats, field peas and some opportunistically summer fodder crops.
Using the ‘rule-of-thumb’ to estimate water-limited yield potential of French and Schultz, a yield potential for cereals for the 450-700 mm annual rainfall zone of 4.5 – 8 t/ha should be expected and for canola, 3 – 4 t/ha. A more sophisticated approach using crop growth models estimated about 3.5 t/ha for a drier than average year and 6.2 t/ha for a wetter than average year for the Katanning region. However a benchmark survey from 1996 to 2001 of current yields showed an average wheat yield of 2.7 t/ha, 2.4 t/ha for barley and 1.4 t/ha for canola (Hill and Wallwork, 2002).
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