Media Reports

The following reports have been recently published in conjunction with APSRU staff.

• RMIT team wins Microsoft challenge  RMIT University News and Events, June 27 2005

Former APSRU staff member Stephen van Rees together with three other RMIT students won an international Microsoft computer design challenge in Seattle with their environmentally friendly water system.  The winning students beat 250 teams from around the world with their EverGreen Intelligent Watering System which uses local weather data along with predicted rain values to calculate and dispense appropriate irrigation amounts.   The system utilizes APSIM and Stephen thanked CSIRO and APSRU in his acceptance speech.

• Yield Prophet helps weigh the odds.  Groundcover, June/July 2005

Yield Prophet is an online computer model that simulates crop growth according to seasonal conditions helping growers making risk-management decisions.  James Hunt is the co-ordinator of the Yield Prophet trial involving 47 growers in northern NSW, the Riverina region, the SA Wimmera/Mallee and the high rainfall areas of WA.

• Growers rewarded for R&D initiative.  Groundcover, June/July 2005

A group of Darling Downs growers won the GRDC Queensland and national group awards for 2004.   They acknowledged their productive relationship with researchers in APSRU.  The members of the Jimbour group collaborate to improve their farming systems by sharing ideas and results from trials on each other's properties.

• Skip those wide rows in maize.  GRDC Northern Update, May 2005

Dr Michael Robertson reports on his research on wide and skip row configurations in sorghum and maize.  APSIM was used to compare the crop yield with different planting dates and available water content.  "Judicious use of seasonal climate forecasts can aid decisions about crop selection, appropriate plant populations and other agronomic inputs."

• Herbicide resistance - Roundup Ready® canola saves Canadian skins. Ground Cover, April/May 2005

Visiting scientist Professor Ian Morrison of University of Alberta, Canada compares herbicide resistance in Australia and Canada.  He said the problem in Australia could be more widespread due to multiple resistance in ryegrass and wild radish.  The introduction of Roundup Ready® canola in Canada proved to be a critical tool in coping with resistance.

• Managing inputs in a variable environment. Ground Cover, April/May 2005

Howard Cox examines how growers can use the new national Whopper Cropper project to better manage climate and climate-influenced variables such as soil's plant available water content.  Examples are given of plant available water content and its effect on total gross margin and the potential yield of wheat and sorghum at different water-holding capacities.

• Tools to reduce the impact of climate variability. Australian Farm Journal, April 2005

Dr Daniel Rodriguez is quoted as discussing several projects that are looking at tools for reducing the impact of climate variability.  These include a program called Climate Variability Analyser (CVA), forecasting tools for rainfall and minimum temperatures in south-eastern Australia, using SOI phases to design nitrogen management strategies for wheat crops, connection between subsoil and climate variability on wheat yield and using CVA to help grain growers in SA.

• Prepare for a hotter, drier climate.  Australia Cotton Outlook, April 2005

Dr Holger Meinke was reported as saying  at the Australian Cotton Week conference in Dalby that climate change will mean decreased rainfall while temperatures continue to rise.    The message is not meant to alarm rural producers but to prepare them.  If a farmer is operating a system that is highly sensitive to climate inputs any sort of change will be felt immediately.