THE countdown is on to the Australian Agronomy Conference, hosted by the Australian Society of Agronomy and being held this year in the Western Australian city of Albany.

Its port is one of Australia’s largest exporters of canola, and it is the major service centre to farms in the Great Southern region that produces cereals, pulses and pastures too, on some of the highest and most reliable rainfall in the Australian grainbelt.

Albany’s Noongar name is Kinjarling, or “the place of rain”, and it has been selected as the location for the conference due to its significant contributions to agricultural research and its stunning natural beauty.

The conference theme is Adaptive agronomy for a resilient future and will feature presentations, panel discussions, workshops and field trips over the four-day program starting on October 21 and showcasing the latest research and innovations in agronomy.

Convening the conference is ASA president and WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development’s chief scientist of primary industries Dr Ben Biddulph.

The conference serves as a platform for the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and experiences from professionals, researchers, and experts that contribute to the advancement of sustainable agricultural practices.

Kicking off the event is a masterclass designed with early-career agronomists and PhD students in mind.

Being held at the University of WA’s Albany campus, its content will span technical and professional aspects of a career in agronomy.

Involving CSIRO’s group leader of integrated agricultural systems Dr Rick Llewellyn,  the masterclass will cover:

• Subsoil amelioration with WA DPIRD’s Dr Gaus Azam;
• Phenology, sowing time, frost, and heat with Charles Sturt University researcher Dr Felicity Harris;
• Nitrogen management with The University of Melbourne’s Dr James Hunt; and,
• High-rainfall agronomy with WA DPIRD’s Jeremy Curry.

A professional development workshop on networking will be delivered by Value Creators’ Maree Gooch and Ann Maree O’Callaghan to cover networking skills and help early-career agronomists and students develop networks at the conference.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, presentations in the main body of the conference will be structured around the following sub-themes:

• Managing and modifying soils to improve sustainability and productivity;
• Managing farming systems for sustainability, profitability and resilience;
• Emerging systems, native systems and innovative agronomy;
• Management of abiotic and biotic stresses;
• Data systems, sensors and technology for improved decision making; and,
• Application, integration and adoption of agronomy research into commercial production systems.

Broader focus

The conference is looking beyond the traditional parameters of broadscale agriculture to how cropping coexists within sustainability frameworks and local ecosystems, and a highlight of the program will be keynote addresses from professors Stephen Hopper and Raj Khosla.

Prof Khosla is a globally recognised authority on precision agriculture and heads Kansas State University’s agronomy department.

He has been engaged in precision agriculture since its inception, and is the founder and past-president of the International Society of Precision Agriculture.

As Professor of Biodiversity at UWA’s Albany campus, Prof Hopper has since 2012 been investigating the ecological, evolutionary, conservation and sustainability aspects of biodiversity on old, climatically buffered infertile landscapes, or Ocbils.

Prof Hopper has been working on native plants “for the best part of 50 years”, and said he was looking forward to speaking to the agronomy gathering about the role that small but important areas within farms can play in preserving biodiversity.

“It’s not about sacrificing large areas of agricultural land,” Prof Hopper said, adding that uplands, or outcrops not suitable for farming, were often important homes for native flora and fauna.

“What’s underappreciated is the granite outcrop, or the gravelly laterite mesa, or even high sandplain, those elevated parts of dunes, with concentrations of highly localised endemics.”

Prof Hopper regularly speaks with farmers, individually or in groups, who are already looking after land they have set aside, or are considering allocating a small area or areas of their farm to help conserve endemic species.

“Some are concerned initially, but when they realise you’re talking about…just a few hectares, most farmers say: ‘Is that all?’

“You’ve got to earn a living, but what’s special about your place are the patches of bush that make it different from other farms.

“Some farmers have a lot of pride in that.”

From 2006 to 2012, Prof Hopper was director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, with its vast collection of plants from around the globe.

His relocation to Albany has enabled him to get a handle on time, and what it does to landscapes.

“I often compare our farming land with theirs; a lot of the Northern Hemisphere was under glaciers just 12,000 years ago, and 25 million years ago was the last time a glacier was covering our landscape.

“It’s an extraordinary system we have here.”

It makes the south-west of WA one of the world’s 36 or so biodiversity hotspots.

Prof Hopper said the willingness of farmers to conserve remnant bushland was already playing an important part in conservation.

A case in point is Eucalyptus caesia, which occurs only on around 25 rocky outcrops in the Wheatbelt in the wider Merredin district.

“Caesia is Latin for the colour of the ocean, and its white blooms on hanging branchlets look  a little bit like a frothy ocean.

“These are like islands in a sea of agricultural and flatter lands.

“Quite a few of them are on farms, and the farmers I know are looking after them.

“Lots of families use them for picnics, and they’re incredibly rich and beautiful places.”

Through his interaction with indigenous peoples of WA’s south-west, Prof Hopper is adding to what he has learnt throughout his working life that started with a Bachelor of Science at UWA in the 1970s.

It progressed through a PhD on kangaroo paws, native only to WA, through WA Government roles, and as director and then CEO of Perth’s Kings Park and Botanic Garden from 1992 to 2004.

“We’ve been working with aboriginal elders, who open your eyes to the land and how it could be managed in profound ways.

“Country is the ultimate teacher of how to life a sustainable life; we’re all reliant on the land.

“It’s a second education for me.

“First nations’ people care for a large area of landscape across the world; we all can learn from their knowledge.”

The first Australian Agronomy Conference was held in 1980, and the mostly biennial event has been held at various locations across Australia, and once in New Zealand.

It was last held in WA in Perth in 2006.

The final day of the program is devoted to field tours, and offers delegates a choice of five itineraries, covering a range of landscapes and enterprises:

1. South Coast – Borden and Boxwood Hills;
2. Forest Gravels – Kendenup and Mt Barker;
3. Integrated Cropping – Katanning and Perth;
4. Food Bowl – Manjimup, Perth; and,
5. Intensive Industries – Albany.

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