Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20163
Title: NBudget: A simple tool for farmers and advisors for N management in Australia’s northern grain cropping
Contributor(s): Herridge, David  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2016
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20163
Abstract: Effective management of plant-available nitrogen (N) by farmers will generally have beneficial productivity, economic and environmental consequences. The reality is that farmers may be unsure of plant-avalable N levels in cropping soils at sowing and by necessity make decisions about how much fertiliser N to apply with limited information about soil N supply. NBudget is an excel-based decision-support (DS) tool developed to assist farmers/advisors in Australia's northern grains region estimate (i) plant-available soil N and water levels pre-sowing, (ii) target yields, (iii) fertiliser N requirements for cereals and oilseed crops and (iv) N₂ fixation by legumes. NBudget does not rely on soil testing either for nitrate-N, organic carbon or water. Rather, the tool relies on rainfall data plus basic descriptions of soil texture and fertility, tillage practice, information about the previous two years paddock use plus rules-of-thumb values and stand-alone or linked algorithms. Winter and summer versions of NBudget cover the major crops of the region. Groundtruthing of NBudget against three independent data sets (n=55) indicated generally close agreement between measured and predicted values for sowing soil nitrate (r²=0.76). A limitation of the tool is that it does not account for denitrification losses of soil N. The usefulness of NBudget would be enhanced by transforming the current Excel-based tool to a stand-alone app or web-based tool.
Publication Type: Conference Publication
Conference Details: INI 2016: 7th International Nitrogen Initiative Conference, "Solutions to improve nitrogen use efficiency for the world", Melbourne, Australia, 4th - 8th December, 2016
Source of Publication: Proceedings of the 2016 International Nitrogen Initiative Conference, "Solutions to enhance nitrogen use efficiency for the world", p. 1-4
Publisher: International Nitrogen Initiative
Place of Publication: online
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 070306 Crop and Pasture Nutrition
070302 Agronomy
070107 Farming Systems Research
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 300407 Crop and pasture nutrition
300403 Agronomy
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 961402 Farmland, Arable Cropland and Permanent Cropland Soils
960904 Farmland, Arable Cropland and Permanent Cropland Land Management
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 180605 Soils
180607 Terrestrial erosion
180603 Evaluation, allocation, and impacts of land use
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: E1 Refereed Scholarly Conference Publication
Publisher/associated links: http://www.ini2016.com/pdf-papers/INI2016_Herridge_David2.pdf
Appears in Collections:Conference Publication
School of Environmental and Rural Science

Files in This Item:
3 files
File Description SizeFormat 
Show full item record

Page view(s)

1,438
checked on May 19, 2024
Google Media

Google ScholarTM

Check


Items in Research UNE are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.