Managing Stubble - Grains Research & Development Corporation

Section 6: Crop Management for Wider Row Spacing
As discussed earlier we refer to wider row spacing as 250mm to 375mm. Crop management
is always evolving and farmers implementing inter-row sowing generally tend to explore new
agronomy and crop rotations such as:
• Early sowing is valuable for promoting crop vigour prior to winter,
• Increased frequency of legume crops in the rotation,
• Wide row (500 – 750mm) crops such as canola, lupins and beans. These crops enable
opportunities for banded applications of fungicides and foliar fertilisers, and shielded
spraying,
• Relay summer crops become a realistic opportunity,
• Farmers with disc machines have the ability to sow crop directly along a legume stubble
to maximise the benefits of nodulated nitrogen,
• Caution needs to be applied with fertiliser rates, especially when single shoot sowing
canola into light textured soils,
• Consider cultivars which are more likely to tiller and early nitrogen applications to
stimulate early crop growth,
• Nitrogen by soil bacteria is the main nutritional issue with no-till. Whilst the tied-up
nitrogen will cycle back to become available again, in the early stages no-till will almost
certainly require higher nitrogen rates to be used. The lack of cultivation will also lead to
less nitrogen being released from the unavailable nitrogen pool in the soil.