Harden trials

The Harden-Murrumburrah Landcare Group region is a mixed farming area, with most farms cropping between 50 and 60% of total farm area. Of this cropped area, around 60% is cereal, primarily wheat but also small areas of oats and triticale.

The current management of cereal crop stubble in the region is to graze the paddock after harvest then burn the residual prior to sowing the following autumn. While grazing is the most common method of stubble management, some operators are testing a no-livestock system. There are many variations on this general practice and HMLG members were keen to identify management techniques that would allow them to more fully utilise the stubble resource and avoid burning.

Since 2005, a number of methods of stubble management have been investigated including biological products (promoted as assisting with stubble breakdown), mechanical treatments, and other techniques to remove the need to burn stubble. These trials have been conducted in collaboration with NSW Department of Primary Industries and the Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Authority. Stubble loads have been low in all these years. Group members decided to continue the work in 2008 to allow more rigorous testing of landholder ideas.

Further funding from Woolworth's Sustainable Farms Drought Program has enabled the investigations to continue in 2009 and 2010.

Click on the links below to see photos of the trial sites