A crowd of 140 attended the 2024 Liebe Group Spring Field Day held at the McAlpines' property near Maya earlier this month. With the season to date at the group’s Main Trial Site being quite favourable, all 18 trials located at the site looked promising and will provide valuable information to farmers when results are released in early 2025.
The Spring Field Day is the Liebe Group’s showcase event for the year, allowing farmers and industry members to observe the research activities and deepen their understanding of how and why the work is being conducted.
Canola establishment has been a hot topic of conversation in 2024, with CSBP discussing phosphate toxicity risk and CSIRO presenting on the impact of liquid nitrogen placement on plant emergence. This work complements three years of Liebe Group R&D focused on very early sowing of canola, highlighting the benefits of early sowing where possible.
Other notable trials include a focus on legumes, which aims to answer the question of “what to sow next” in situations where early sowing of canola has occurred and decisions need to be made around whether to start a cereal program or transition to a suitable legume crop. This trial examined legumes such as lupins, serradella, vetch, and chickpeas alongside canola, wheat, and barley, sown at two different times.
With several new lines of barley varieties coming through the system, the Liebe Group also funded an independent barley variety trial, showcasing these new varieties against current industry standards.
Post-emergent herbicide strategies following soil amelioration were a popular topic, with a collaborative trial with Elders Dalwallinu demonstrating different chemistry options and their effectiveness in soil that had been deep-ripped using a Horsch Tiger.
On the topic of soil amelioration, a farm-scale demonstration using a Horsch Tiger compared to a deep ripper with and without inclusion plates generated great discussion. This was complemented by an always-popular soil pit discussion led by DPIRD’s Wayne Parker.
The keynote speakers for the event included Kate Burke of Think Agri, who provided an informative conclusion to the day, addressing various aspects of farming including succession, benchmarking, and resilience; and Guy Coleman, who discussed the evolution of precision agriculture, camera detection technology, and machine learning, along with how weeds will interact with algorithms over time.
The day concluded with wood-fired pizza and refreshments by the fire, a fitting way to wrap up the event.
With such a diverse range of trials and demonstrations, the interesting visual results should yield informative outcomes come harvest time. All results will be available in the Liebe Group Annual Research & Development publication and on the Liebe Group website, along with GRDC investments available on the Farm Trials website.
The Liebe Group Spring Field Day continues its strong tradition of providing a wealth of information for farmers, as well as valuable networking opportunities for both farmers and the industry.
The Liebe Group thanks its long-term event partner, Elders Dalwallinu, as well as its Diamond Sponsors: Rabobank, CSBP, CBH, and RSM. Many trials presented at the site were funded through investment from the Grains Research & Development Corporation, and the keynote speaker was supported by the Grower Group Alliance, with funding from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.
Finally, many thanks go to the host farmers, Brendon, Chris, Brian, and Tracy McAlpine, for hosting the trial site in 2024. In 2025, the group’s main site will move to Nugadong, hosted by the Cail family on the Great Northern Highway.
