Weed management in Australian rice production

Summary

Weed competition is a challenge to direct seeded rice producers throughout the world. The simultaneous establishment of rice and weed seedlings can see dramatic reductions in grain yields with a resultant increase in costs of rice production and wastage of precious resources such as irrigation water, fertilisers, fuel and machinery inputs. Australian rice producers have invested directly in plant breeding, crop nutrition and weed control research for over thirty years, resulting in the achievement of the highest average grain yields per hectare of any country in the world. The project is an attempt by Australian ricegrowers to maintain this high productivity by meeting the challenge of herbicide resistance. Beneficiaries of this project will be rice producers (through sustained and improved grain yields), rice consumers (through increased supplies of high quality grain) and the environment (through improved productivity for the resources invested and reduced off target movement of agricultural chemicals).

Program

Rice

Research Organisation

Agropraisals Pty Ltd

Objective Summary

To develop and demonstrate new herbicide resistance management strategies for direct seeded rice by searching and evaluating new herbicides offering alternate methods of action to those currently in use.