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(Simon Speirs) In Australia,
approximately half of our grain growers
use soil testing once every three years
to help understand soil nutrient status
and to assist with fertiliser decision making.
This low frequency of use of soil testing
reflects variable levels of confidence amongst advisors and grain growers.
There are continuing doubts over the reliability of soil testing methods
as a means of predicting plant nutrient requirements.
There is also concern about the accuracy
and reproducibility of analyses
between different laboratories.
While for some there tends to be limited understanding
of the soil processes that contribute to crop nutrient requirements,
and among others a view that collecting
soil samples is time consuming and unprofitable.
The grains and fertiliser industries
have made several moves to overcome these challenges.
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(Ken Peverill) So almost 30 years ago,
ASPAC, the Australasian Soil and Plant Analysis Council,
introduced a regular program of inter-laboratory proficiency testing
in order to help improve analytical reproducibility
between different soil testing laboratories
and to restrict the range of soil tests used.
About the same time, ASPAC also undertook
the task of collating all soil test interpretation guidelines
from agricultural trial work
and they incorporated this in the reference book
“Soil Analysis: an interpretation manual” that was published in 1999.
In 2008 Fertilizer Australia introduced
the Fertcare accreditation scheme
which applies for individuals and corporate systems
so that they may best set best management practices
in soil sampling, soil analysis, interpretation of data
and formulating fertiliser recommendations.
(Simon Speirs) Between 2008 and 2012,
'Making Better Fertiliser Decisions for Cropping Systems in Australia'
was undertaken with funding of more than three million dollars
from the Grains Research Development Corporation
and collaborators in the grains and fertiliser industries.
The principal project aim was to improve the reliability and consistency
of soil test interpretation for preferred nitrogen,
phosphorus, potassium and sulphur soil tests.
The project undertook the challenge of collating all suitable experiments
into a single repository known as
the Better Fertilisers Decisions National Database.
The database includes 1,800 nitrogen,
2,600 phosphorus, 460 potassium,
and 290 sulphur experiments.
Experiments had been undertaken predominantly in wheat,
but there were also moderate numbers of experiments
for barley, canola and lupins
as well as a small number of experiments for other grain crops.
The team developed a web-based tool, called the BFDC Interrogator,
to enable calibration relationships to be derived
from the soil test-crop response data held in the national database.
The BFDC Interrogator enables registered users
to rapidly derive calibration criteria for soil test interpretation.
To assist users the team developed and rolled out a train-the-trainer
package to the grains and fertiliser industries.
This enabled people from the industry to train others
and this approach was possible through the ongoing collaboration
of the fertiliser industry
and through key agribusinesses partners in the project team.
(Ken Peverill) This Special Edition in the Crop and Pasture Science
outlines the development of the BFDC Interrogator
and the calibration methods used to derive critical soil test criteria.
It represents a condensation of outputs from the BFDC Interrogator
for various N, P, K and S soil tests used across a range of cereal,
oilseeds and pulse crops.
Two papers also address different soil P tests in order to determine
what is measured and how different soil test methods
compare when the same data set is used.
The special edition concludes with reports on the training approach used
to roll out the national database to advisors
and identifies lessons learnt and makes recommendations
for future R&D in crop nutrition requirements.
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