A profitable future: new rotations for low-rainfall areas

摘要

In the low-rainfall cropping areas of southern Australia defined as having 250 millimetres to 350mm annual rainfall, non-cereal crops make up only a very small proportion of the arable land (Table 1). However, there is a need for more non-cereal cropoptions, particularly grain and pasture legumes, to provide profitable rotational crops. They are also needed to provide disease breaks and weed-control opportunities for cereal production and, in some areas, an alternative to continued use of long fallowing with its attendant environmental costs. In this study, the probability of achieving profitable non-cereal grain yields was examined.