Fine-tuning nutrient and constraints management in the Tully mill area

Tully Cane Productivity Services Limited (TCPSL) and Sugar Research Australia (SRA) are part of a small network delivering research and extension under the Fine-tuning nutrient and constraints management in the Tully mill area project.

Funded through the Queensland’s Government Sugarcane Practice Change Program, the project helps growers fine-tune their fertiliser inputs and increase crop nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) by applying the full SIX EASY STEPS®.

Opportunities to adjust nitrogen inputs will come from the SIX EASY STEPS® Toolbox (e.g., following a legume fallow, poor-yielding or late-harvested blocks). Along with strategies to address yield constraints, implementing Toolbox recommendations will improve productivity and NUE. Research and science support constraint identification. Examples include the use of enhanced efficiency fertiliser as well as diagnostic techniques for assessing crop and soil nutrient status and exposure to pests and diseases.

This project was co-designed with local industry organisations with the following objectives:

• Work with growers to boost farm productivity while reducing nutrient and sediment loss to waterways that flow to the Great Barrier Reef.
• Promote practice change by improving grower awareness, knowledge, and ability to make use of scientific concepts and outputs, such as the data-driven identification of constraints and research on enhanced efficiency fertilisers.
• Foster continual improvement by providing delivery providers the opportunity to engage growers with consistent and relevant information, and by demonstrating the value of BMP accreditation and re-accreditation.