This is a summary of the SANTFA Journals, to view the FULL content please click the 
icon for each Journal Article.
SANTFA 2007 Journal |
Spring Edition Month: November Vol: 4 No: 4 |
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 No-till practices | |||||||||
| Title: No-till = no blow! | Author: Mike Roberts CRC | ||||||||
| Upper SE farmers Andrew and Gary Hansen discuss the challenges and benefits of adopting and adapting no-till techniques on a mixture of sandhills and very stony country. | |||||||||
| “When we were conventionally cropping, blowing sand on those windy days in winter would make you want to lock yourself up in the workshop and not come out. “Since we’ve been no-tilling we don’t worry because we’re planting into stubble cover and the paddocks aren’t going to move.” This is just one of the benefits Andrew Hansen has observed from the transition to no-till farm... | |||||||||
| GM Debate | |||||||||
| Title: Resistance 'manageable' | Author: Graeme Jennings | ||||||||
| Resistant weeds researcher Chris Preston discusses the implications of glyphosate resistance crops in managing herbicide resistance. | |||||||||
| Glyphosate-resistant crops have the potential to accelerate development of glyphosate-resistant weed populations because they open up opportunities for more frequent use of the chemical. According to Dr Chris Preston, a University of Adelaide and Weeds CRC researcher, this is demonstrated by what is happening in the US, where widespread use of the Roundup Ready (RR) system has resulted... | |||||||||
| GM Debate | |||||||||
| Title: Many Dimensions to GM Debate | Author: Graeme Jennings | ||||||||
| A look at the GM debate in Australia from a range of views including validity of comparisons with GM use in Canada. | |||||||||
| “Genetically Modified’. The words seem to generate either fear or hope, depending on the listener. So what is the truth about genetically modified (GM) food crops? Or is there more than one truth? Are GM crops the way to superior agronomy and profit or the start of a slippery slope towards contaminated, dangerous food and domination of the food chain by international corpor... | |||||||||
| GM Debate | |||||||||
| Title: Major benefits from GM crops | Author: Graeme Jennings | ||||||||
| A discussion of the reasons why Australia stands to benefit from the introduction of GM crops | |||||||||
| Australian growers would benefit greatly from access to GM varieties, according to Rick Roush. Professor Roush, Dean of the faculty of Land and Food Resources at the University of Melbourne, believes the current bans on production of GM food crops in Australia are denying growers access to genetic material with the potential to improve their ability to farm profitably in the face of on-... | |||||||||
| GM Debate | |||||||||
| Title: Still concerns on GM Technology | Author: Graeme Jennings | ||||||||
| A discussion of concerns about the introduction of GM crops in Australia looking at issues of market demand, lack of independent trial work, segregation, contamination and testing. | |||||||||
| Despite repeated reassurances from science, commerce and government, there remain significant concerns about genetically modified organisms in the food chain. All these concerns, whether relating to health, the environment or economic issues, appear to be based in a fear of the unknown. GM is new technology and, given that GM soy and GM canola – the two main GM food crops to ... | |||||||||
| Discs vs. tines | |||||||||
| Title: Balancing the benefits of discs and tines | Author: Michael Bennet, SANTFA | ||||||||
| Seeding technology has come a long way since the late 1980s, with significant refinements in disc seeders to accommodate IBS (incorporated by sowing) herbicides and a change in tined seeders from low breakout cultivator tines to hydraulic precision sowing tines These developments provide the backdrop for a recent decision by a pioneer of disc seeding on Eyre Peninsula to put his disc seeder in the shed and change to a tined machine. | |||||||||
| David Jericho pioneered no-till seeding with discs on Eyre Peninsula in an era when the only way to find out how something worked was to bite the bullet and try it yourself. Today his main seeder is a tined machine with knife points. David, his wife Leah, and son Andrew, farm two properties between Kimba and Cleve on Eastern Eyre Peninsula. The family’s first fo... | |||||||||
| Cover Crops | |||||||||
| Title: Saia oats and cover crops - the Eyre Peninsula experience | Author: Michael Bennet, SANTFA | ||||||||
| Michael Bennet discusses the experiences of two EP farmers using Saia oats as a break crop and weed control system using a knife roller to create a soil surface mulch. | |||||||||
| There has been a great deal of enthusiasm for including Saia oats (Avena strigosa) in the farming system as a break crop. There also appears to be potential to use it as the basis of an alternative weed control system that involves rolling onto the surface of the paddock with a knife roller to create a mulch that can provide a non-herbicidal weed control. This system is use... | |||||||||
| Stubble management | |||||||||
| Title: Stubble retention begins at harvest | Author: Mike Ashworth, WANTFA | ||||||||
| Stubble retention is a key component of no-till systems and management of this resource needs to start at harvest. | |||||||||
| With low levels of crop residue available to protect paddocks this summer, it will be important to carefully manage stubbles to prevent erosion occurring. The benefits of stubble retention and weed control for storing soil moisture were obvious this year where there were large rainfall events over summer. Farmers who retained stubble and controlled weeds were able to establish cro... | |||||||||
| Resource management | |||||||||
| Title: Demystifiying natural resources management | Author: Leighton Pearce, Sustainable Farming Project Officer | ||||||||
| Sustainable Farming Project Officer Leighton Pearce discusses the broad vision of the NRM Plan as launched in 2006. He gives contact information for the state NRM boards, notes issues of concern and the role of SANTFA in working with the NRM plan. | |||||||||
| The increasing growth and importance of natural resources management (NRM) has caught land managers by surprise. ‘Here come the greenies’ you may say, yet we are all involved in some way in protecting the assets that we manage. The importance and involvement of farmers as natural resource managers can neither be underestimated nor denied and SANTFA members are practicing NRM daily. | |||||||||