More Profit from Crop Nutrition: Micronutrient Survey

Australia has had a long history of investigation into micronutrient deficiency, including significant advances in nutrition of pastures, crops and animals. In the grain growing regions, there are reports of B, Cu, Mn, Mo, and Zn deficiencies as well as particular cases where Fe deficiency is seen. However, predicting micronutrient deficiency is particularly challenging, with soil test being relatively unreliable, and tissue tests providing guidance but requiring careful monitoring and sampling. Soil type and geology can provide guidance, but there are large areas of the cropping region that have been treated with micronutrients and often finding a potentially responsive site can be difficult. Therefore, a database of 1,500 geo-referenced soil tests is being linked to the Australian Soil Classification (see SoilMapp) to assess the level of variation in soil test values. Around 1,000 grain samples from the 2012 National Variety Testing program for wheat, canola, narrow leaf lupin, and chickpea will be assessed for micronutrient content to assess if levels can be indexed against soil types. This work is in progress at present and will be reported to the Grains Research and Development Corporation by June 30, 2013. The project is part of a wider national crop nutrition project - More Profit from Crop Nutrition, funded by the GRDC in collaboration with state and federal government agencies, private consultants and the fertilizer industry. ANZ-15