Re-inventing model-based decision support with Australian dryland farmers. 2. Pragmatic provision of soil information for paddock-specific simulation and farmer decision making

Abstract

Economic and climatic pressures are forcing many Australian dryland farmers to reassess their management of soil resources and climatic risk. FARMSCAPE intervention has offered enhanced soil characterisation and monitoring as a contribution to soil water and nitrogen inventory, and simulation as a contribution to interpretation of locally measured environmental data in stochastic production terms. This paper relates the journey taken by the farmers, their consultants, and the researchers as they worked together to assess the value to farming and consulting practice of these scientific tools and techniques. Ten years after FARMSCAPE interactions commenced, a sample of participant farmers and consultants was interviewed to evaluate effects on thinking and practice. Understandings and concepts gained in FARMSCAPE continued to guide thinking and action. Early simulations in response to ‘what if…?’ enquiries of strategic importance, such as crop sequencing and rotation choice, were still referred to as learnings of continuing value. However, techniques and practices varied markedly between individuals and organisations. Monitoring of soil resources varied from continued use of the relatively complex tools and techniques provided by the researchers through to the use of much-simplified techniques that provided adequate information to satisfy the conceptual models. Methods for interpreting soil water ranged from use of the simulator, APSIM, to simple water-use efficiency ‘rules of thumb’.