Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 4421 IREC Farmers' Newsletter No. 197 — Autumn 2017 Practice Details Field preparation Wheat stubble burnt — no cultivation Sowing 20 May 2016 — disc drill with 18 cm row spacing Variety and rate La Trobe barley @ 50 and 80 kg/ha Sowing fertiliser DAP @ 125 kg/ha sown with seed Establishment 50 kg/ha = 90 plants/m2 and 80 kg/ha = 160 plants/m2 Herbicides Ally @ 5 g/ha Topdressed nitrogen Z32 — 8 August (week prior to 10 mm rain) Irrigation date 1 irrigation — 27 October Table 1. Cultural practices timing and details for the irrigated barley trial, Leeton 2016. Table 2. Barley crop production and water productivity for the irrigation, seed rate and nitrogen topdressing treatments (averaged across the other treatments) at Leeton, 2016. The field had an intensive cropping history with two consecutive rice crops followed by wheat, canola and wheat, which all had the stubble slashed and burned. A full list of the barley crop’s cultural practices, their timing and other details is provided in Table 1. This research is part of the Irrigated cereal and canola varieties achieving target yields project, described on page 13. Irrigation and nitrogen treatments There were four replications of each treatment with each irrigation treatment in a separate bay to allow the accurate measurement of water use. It was planned to have four spring irrigation treatments but due to the very wet winter the opportunity only existed for three irrigation treatments: l T1 – rain fed (no irrigation) l T2 – one spring irrigation (five hours ponding before draining) l  T3 – waterlogged (one spring irrigation ponded for 48 hours before draining). The experiment received 402 mm of rain in the growing season, which resulted in a very saturated soil profile during winter and limited opportunity for a range of irrigation treatments. The waterlogging treatment was applied at the same time as the one irrigation treatment (27 October) but the water was held on the bays for 48 hours to simulate a layout with poor drainage. Each irrigation treatment was split in two for seed rate treatments, and then split again with topdressed urea at rates of zero, 108, 217 and 326 kg/ha urea. Urea was spread onto the soil surface at the stem elongation stage of the barley crop, with the second node visible (Z32) (Table 1). Grain yield Average grain yield for the experiment was 6.3 t/ha with 8.0 t/ha the highest grain yield achieved in the experiment from 50 kg/ha seed rate, one irrigation and topdressed with 326 kg/ha of urea. There was no significant difference in grain yield between the 50 and 80 kg/ha seed rates. The 80 kg/ha seed rate treatment produced a higher dry matter and more tillers but this did not transfer into increased grain yield (Table 2). The rainfed treatment had a significantly lower grain yield than both the irrigated treatments but the difference was relatively small (0.27 t/ha) due to the large amount of rainfall received during the growing season. The grain yield interaction between irrigation and nitrogen was significant (Figure 1). Treatment Total dry matter (kg/ha) Tiller number (no./m2 ) Grain yield (t/ha) Grain protein (%) Retention > 2.5 mm (%) Screenings < 2.2 mm (%) Water productivity (t/ML) Irrigation Rainfed 1 irrigation Waterlogged l.s.d. (P