Results from the 2013 Longerenong Cropping Trial

In its fourth year at the same site at Longerenong College, the crop competition teams developed agronomy programs to produce the best barley crops. The sites were in canola in 2010, wheat in 2011 and chickpea in 2012 and the teams have kept to the same plots in this replicated comparison. Even though the season was a decile 3 overall and nearly 50 mm below the long term average annual rainfall, the wet winter and mild spring meant most rainfall was during the crop growing season and so gave excellent crop yields overall (Table 1).

Table 1. Monthly rainfall, Longerenong, 2013.

Month 2013	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
Rainfall (mm)	0	22	4	15	25	64	64	50	61	34	13	9	361
Long-term Average	25	24	23	29	43	44	43	44	40	42	31	28	417
Decile	1	6	2	3	3	8	8	5	8	4	3	3	3

The highest yield for barley this year went to the BCG, DPI, LAC students, Pacific Seeds and VNTFA who had yields that were no significantly different to the top yield of 5.79 t/ha (VNTFA). These are spectacular yields and show what good management can do if the seasons are kind.

Table 2 below shows the grain yield, the price recieved, cartage and growing costs and the crop annual gross margins, and the VNTFA were able to show the highest return, although 4 other teams had gross margins over $1000/ha for this phase. The prices for barley depended on the variety grown - with all except the students and the VNTFA achieving Malt. The other grain was all F1.

Table 2, Barley yield, grain price, crop costs and annual gross margin for barley at the Longerenong cropping competition, 2013.

Team	Yield	Price ($/t)	Cartage ($10/t)	Crop Costs	Gross Margin ($/ha)
Agritech	4.89	205	49	46	907
BCG	5.68	205	57	72	1036
DPI	5.71	205	57	45	1069
Green Machine	5.16	205	52	67	939
IPL	5.10	205	51	45	949
Late Sowing	4.69	220	47	14	970
Longy Lecturers	5.50	205	55	83	989
Longy students	5.64	205	56	56	1044
Nuseed Nufarm	5.04	205	50	41	943
Pacific Seeds	5.60	205	56	44	1048
Raging Reds	4.86	205	49	108	840
SMS Rural	5.40	205	54	57	996
Tylers Agwise	5.06	205	51	68	918
Vic No Till	5.79	220	58	109	1107
LSD	0.25

A summary of the agronomic packages used, and the crop costs and returns can be downloaded in the spreadsheet below.

When included over the four years of the competition, the gross margins are as in Table 3. Two treatments - late sowing and the Nufarm Nuseed treatments came in after 2010. Over the four years, canola has been the most profitable crop on average, followed by barley, chickpea and then wheat. Over the four years, the Longy Students achieved the highest aggregate (4 year) gross margin of $2878/ha - which interestingly enough was about $500 more than their lecturers.

Table 3. Gross margins ($/ha) for the four years of the Longerenong Crop Competition, 2010-2013.

	Canola	Wheat	Chickpea	Barley
Team name	Return ($/ha)	Return ($/ha)	Return ($/ha)	Return ($/ha)	4 Year GM ($)
Agritech	1383	357	796	907	2536
BCG	1033	396	849	1036	2278
DPI	1279	530	960	1069	2769
Green Machine	1189	351	869	939	2409
IPL	1424	530	792	949	2746
Late Sowing	-	305	897	970
Longy Lecturers	1007	414	961	989	2382
Longy Students	1513	359	1006	1044	2878
Nufarm Nuseed	-	508	613	943
Pacific Seeds	1423	528	751	1048	2702
Raging Reds	1229	456	991	840	2676
SMS Rural	1555	366	727	996	2648
Tylers /Agwise	1001	582	759	918	2342
VTNFA	1290	550	634	1107	2475
Average	1277	445	829	983	2570