While there may have been rain on the roof, drought preparation and resilience were the themes of conversations at the latest meeting of the Australian Ag Institute - SA meeting on Thursday night.
Among the guest speakers was SA Drought Hub knowledge broker Tony Randall, who provided an outline of the 16 regionally-based, on-the-ground adoption projects under way.
He said these regional projects would start to address the 10 themes established by attendees at the hub consultation workshops late last year.
Among the projects at Minnipa were retaining soil water in farming systems using strip/disc machinery and best practice for early sowing opportunities.
At Port Augusta, projects will looking at remote water management in arid lands; building pastoral sustainability through property management planning and improved grazing practices.
Satellite imagery was a big focus at Orroroo, with projects looking at how these can help inform adoptive management, as well as ways to ground truth the results.
Intercropping in break crops will also be considered by the Orroroo node.
At Roseworthy, enhanced mental health will be the focus of one project, as will understanding weather forecasts and improved on-farm water security through remote sensing systems.
The site will also consider the effects of ewe health from lambing through containment feeding.
Struan will look to address feed gaps and assess tools for pasture forecasting.
At Loxton, improved canola establishment in dry conditions will be studied, as will soil zone mapping for variable rate nutrition management.
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The SA Hub and its partners are also involved in three Future Drought Fund national projects, including leading one on improved irrigation scheduling of horticultural crops through image-based sensing.
It will also look at managing rangelands for drought resilience and practices in mixed farming systems.
Also speaking at the meeting was Livestock SA senior project officer Emily Buddle on the AgRiSilience Program.
The program is aimed at helping small regional groups, through workshops, to adapt to business changes.
