Due to the existence of interactions between crops, pasture and livestock, crop-pasture rotations are more complex systems to model compared to continuous cropping rotations. The inclusion of a “long fallow” phase that interacts with both crops and livestock further increases this...

Potential for change in the mix of irrigated enterprises was estimated for a catchment in the Shepparton irrigation region using linear programming. The model allocated resources to maximise net income in each of the next five decades as if the catchment were one farm. Change was driven by price...

Commercial feed blending is a complex process consisting of many potential raw ingredients and final products. The sheer number of daily orders and final products at a typical feed mill means that raw ingredients cannot be mixed to directly produce final products in an economical fashion. As a...

New South Wales Government's 1995 water reform proposals included several environmental flow policies aimed at improving water quality and the river ecosystems. In evaluating these policies a number of different river flow objectives were considered some of which resulted in a reduction in the...

Selection of beef cattle for increased net feed efficiency is a current major focus for research. At present the trait seems to be more apparent in Australia’s southern beef production system which is dominated by mixed farming enterprises. Farm-level evaluation of net feed efficiency should...

Dry land salinisation is a significant cause of land and water degradation in Australia. Changing land use from annual to perennial crops has been widely proposed as a means to reduce land degradation and increase the productivity of saline land. However, in many areas annual crops are...

Sugarcane in a perennial crop harvested annually over a six-month season from June to December. Each crop cycle consists of a plant crop followed by several ratoon crops. Time of harvest influences both commercial cane sugar (CCS) content in the current season and yield in the following season....

The Namoi river catchment in northern NSW is an important irrigation region. Water resources in this region are increasingly stressed. Both surface and groundwater supplies are overallocated in many areas of the catchment. Management options to reduce allocations in line with available supply...