After revolutionising mapping of tree crops, the University of New England’s Applied Agricultural Remote Sensing Centre (AARSC) is moving into broadacre agriculture with a contract to map Queensland’s 2022 soybean crop.
The mapping will help the soybean industry better plan supply chain logistics, and support a push to get greater adoption of the leguminous pulse in farming rotations to support soil health.
UNE’s AARSC was commissioned to undertake statewide mapping of the soybean crop by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Queensland (DAF Qld).
AARSC already works extensively with Australia’s horticultural sectors through provision of mapping for the avocado, macadamia, citrus, olive and mango industries (funded by Hort Innovation) and truffles (funded by Agrifutures), but this is the first time the Centre has been called on to map soy-bean pulse crops.
“The addition of soybean to our national mapping is significant, in that it is the Centre’s first engagement with pulses and broadacre cropping,” says AARSC Director, Professor Andrew Robson.
“We have a strong background in row cropping through our work with rice, funded by Agrifutures, and sugar, which is supported by a number of the sugar mills, but this brings the Centre into collab-oration with the pulse and grain sectors that operate across most of Australia’s arable farming lands.”
In tree crops, Prof. Robson says, AARSC’s national mapping of individual orchards down to one hectare has provided several horticultural industries with essential baseline data on a range of previously hard-to-quantify variables.
“Those include industry extent – the area and distribution of crops – the annual change in crop area, monitoring of the effects of natural disaster, biosecurity preparedness, water security, traceability and even labour requirements. These outcomes have been strongly supported and adopted by the respective industries.”
“Further value-adding of these maps to include mapping of plant health, age and even yield forecasting has been well received.”
Accurately mapping Queensland’s soybean plantings will give the industry better data than it has ever had before, according to Neil Halpin, leader of DAF Qld’s Coastal Farming Systems Team. He believes that accurate maps will allow commensurately better planning around harvest logistics and marketing of the crop.
Soybeans, a nitrogen-fixing leguminous pulse, are becoming an important tool in maintaining soil health and crop yields in sugar cane soils that have been somewhat depleted from decades of sugar-cane monoculture
Breaking the monoculture with grain legumes improves soil health. Improved soil health not only results in improved sugarcane productivity it importantly increases input use efficiency. The better the crop uptake of inputs the less risk of it being lost to the environment. Grain legume production diversifies the growers income stream and provides nitrogen to the subsequent cane crop, which is important given current fertiliser prices.
“DAF Qld’s Coastal Farming Systems team is interested in the potential of good mapping to measure the direct impact of soybean rotation, and to show the wider community the extent and effect of improved farming practices,” Mr Halpin says.
“The industry itself also wants to optimise post-harvest logistics and marketing.”
“On one hand, there is growing consumer interest in the ethics of food and plant-based diets. Soy is frequently used in plant-based alternatives to meat, and Australian-grown soy doesn’t carry the ethical baggage associated with soy production overseas.”
“Meanwhile, the rising energy prices pushing up fertiliser costs are also pushing up transport costs, so the industry needs better information so it can deliver its harvest to market with optimum efficiency.”
Prof. Robson also points to the push by the National Committee for Land Use and Management Information (NCLUMI) to developing a unified approach to mapping all Australian crops annually.
“The Centre is already mapping Australia’s horticulture tree crops, truffles, rice and protected cropping systems. Mapping soybeans is a new addition that puts us all one step closer to having all crops mapped annually. This will be a great outcome for the soybean industry and Australian agriculture as a leader in the development and direct adoption of spatial tools.”
