FOR DAF’s Dr Paul Grundy, winning the non-grower service to industry award at the Central Highlands Cotton Growers and Irrigators Awards night was the perfect way to end the exploratory phase of an extensive trial.
The DAF team as a whole won the award for their work with the early planting trials run in the region over the past four seasons, which gave growers a knowledge boost heading into the first season of the extended planting window.
Dr Grundy said he wanted to particularly thank the efforts of local agronomist Jamie Iker, and local farm manager Carlo Stangherlin who hosted the trials on Orana and Trawalla.
Dr Grundy said it was fantastic to receive the award.
“It was really nice to have the work that myself and Gail (Spargo) and Sharna (Holman), Jamie (Iker) and Carlo (Strangherlin) have done over the past four years acknowledged by the local industry,” Dr Grundy said.
”You’re always a bit nervous when everyone can go and do their own thing with it that you hope that what you observed in your trial… I think by and large last year most people had a very good experience with planting early.”
The last season was not without challenges, with early season pest pressure.
While the exploratory phase of the research has wrapped up, the project will continue over the next three years collecting benchmarking data from both early and late sown crops.
“Ultimately where we’d like to arrive in about three years’ time is to do some really good simulations on what the yield potential in Emerald is for each of the different planting dates is you transpose those over the historical weather records,” Dr Grundy said.