THE Upper North Farming Systems group has kicked off the first of its series of stubble management guidelines with local advice on inter-row sowing.
The group's trials manager Matt McCallum said the guide would be the first of 10 released in the next five years, thanks to funding from GRDC.
He said there had been a lot of trial work on the benefits of inter-row sowing, and the guidelines would provide some of this technical information, backed up with stories from local farmers putting it into practice.
"Farmers learn from other farmers," he said.
"It is a far more effective way practices change and get adopted."
Mr McCallum said the case studies added more meaning to trial information.
"We're trying to find out how they put it into practice; any tips, issues, how they overcame those and the benefits they're seeing," he said.
"Farmers looking to adopt (the practice) have a good pool of knowledge, not only of researchers and advisers but other farmers who have adopted it already."
Rural Solutions farming systems consultant Michael Wurst helped write the guidelines.
He said the results from inter-row sowing showed a reduction in disease and improvement in yields.
The guide references trials in SA that show sowing wheat-on-wheat directly into standing stubble saw an average yield increase of six per cent.
In the Upper North, soil-borne diseases such as take-all, crown rot, common root rot and root lesion nematodes were found in lower levels with inter-row compared to on-row sowing.