Innovation in Agronomy 3

This course aims to provide students with an understanding of the important physiological principles of crop production and how these principles can be applied to cropping systems. The course has three modules focussing on Innovations in: (a) weed management; (b) water and nutrient management; and (c) agronomic management. The first module will focus on enhancing understanding of behaviour of weeds under different tillage systems, herbicide properties and their interaction with crop establishment and weed control in no-till seeding systems. This module will also cover off-target risks of herbicide use including development of herbicide resistance in weeds. The second module will focus on water and nutrient management in cropping systems. Important topics such as managing crop sowing time, cover cropping/rotations and precision planting will be covered. The last module of the course will focus on innovations in crop agronomy including precision agriculture, decision support tool Yield Prophet, grain and graze systems and frost risk and its management. The practical work in this course will focus on learning and applying information from crop simulations models through Yield Prophet, understanding spatial variability from satellite imagery from FluroSat. Another practical will focus on crop safety and weed control with pre-emergence herbicides.