Grower and Advisor Study Tours (Round 3) 2026

The project will establish four paddock scale barley demonstration sites (Frankland River, Mount Barker, Woogenellup North and Green Range) with a nil control and four in season N strategies reflecting likely grower supply scenarios. SCF will run a fortnightly plant tissue testing program from early tillering to late stem elongation, supported by baseline and follow up soil N testing, two NDVI timings and harvest yield mapping, and will extend results to growers through a simple traffic light alert system via monthly e news updates, interim short videos and at least one field walk. The intended outcome is improved confidence and timeliness of in season N decisions—matched to crop stage, rainfall received and fertiliser already applied—so growers can better protect yield and nitrogen use efficiency under constrained inputs.

This project will explore short-term on-farm grain storage as a strategy to improve harvest efficiency and reduce costs for Australian grain growers. By keeping harvesters operating at full capacity, growers can minimise machinery depreciation, reduce fuel and labour costs, and lower the risk of grain quality losses due to adverse weather. The project will provide practical guidance on available storage options and generate economic analysis to help growers assess the financial benefits of adopting these systems. Findings will be shared through fact sheets, webinars, workshops, and regional grower updates, ensuring growers have access to clear, evidence-based information to support more efficient, profitable, and resilient harvest operations.

This project aims to combat behavioural barriers to resistance management through comparing weed seed resistance and grower perception testing.

Precision Nutrition: A national initiative to improve grower's financial returns from fertiliser expenditure and build capacity in nutrient management

Established in 2021, the GRDC National Grower Network (NGN) is one of GRDC’s primary stakeholder engagement mechanisms to capture and prioritise constraints or opportunities to enhance profitability of Australian grain growers. The NGN provides an important means for the GRDC to: * Support meaningful two-way engagement with grain growers and other industry stakeholders, including educating them about GRDC’s role and our portfolio of past and current investments, * Improve GRDC’s awareness and understanding of local issues and constraints and opportunities, their extent, and direct and indirect costs, * Informs the development of NGN validation, extension and communication investments that are locally relevant, promote adoption and have on-farm impact, including urgent responses to seasonal issues, * Helps identify the desired outcomes to shape GRDC research and development (R&D) investments, including variations to existing investments.