Crop and Pasture Management
Crop and Pasture Management
The resources on this page are of relevance to SA farmers and regional communities. They are to assist in decision making and potential practice change to build drought preparedness and resilience. Further information on crop and pasture management is available through the SA Drought Hub team, including the Farming Systems Adoption Officer and Knowledge Broker.
Crop establishment resources for the 2026 season
The SA Drought Hub hosted a Crop Establishment Forum in March 2026, providing growers and advisers with practical tools and information to support decision-making ahead of the 2026 season.
A number of useful guides and resources referenced during the forum are available below. These include practical decision-support tools for pre-emergent herbicide use, crop establishment guides, climate adaptation research, and enterprise gross margin tools to support crop planning and farm business decision-making.
These resources can assist growers and advisers in managing seasonal risk under increasingly variable conditions:
- In-season Nitrogen Decisions Considering Opportunity and Risk
- Pre-emergent Herbicide Decision Guide
- Farm Gross Margin Guide
- Climate insights to guide crop and livestock decisions
- How can learnings from the 2025 season help (presentation by Jeff Braun, agronomist)
- Sowing opportunities in a variable climate: understanding the break (presentation by Peter Hayman, climate scientist)
- Best practice when using pre-emergent herbicides- case study
- Early-sowing pays off- case study
- Seeding system set-up for success- case study
- Optimising seeding depth- case study
- Why choose long coleoptile wheat varieties- case study
- Reducing risks to canola establishment with the ‘Canola establishment decision matrix’ below:
These resources were developed by the SA Drought Hub, Ag Excellence Alliance, SAGIT, GRDC, HART Field-Site Group, with the case studies also supported by HART, AIR EP, MSF, BCG, NSS, FarmLink, UNFS, Facey Group, CWFS, CFIG, Southern Growers, Riverine Plains, MPF and Irrigation Farmers Network.
Technical resources to support crop and pasture management
Explore practical technical resources developed through SA Drought Hub projects and partner initiatives to support informed decision-making across crop and pasture management.
Resources for improving the management of early and dry sown crops, developed my Northern Sustainable Soils, Trengove Consulting and Agricultural Consulting and Research:
- Improving the Management of Dry or Early Sown Crops – Project Technical Report
- A look at the effect of herbicide residues on conventional and imi tolerant lentil production at Hart in 2025 – utilising the 2024 herbicide tolerance demo
- The impact of grass control pre-emergent herbicides on lentil in the following season
- The influence of fertiliser type, placement and rate on crop establishment and vigour in 2025
Dry season information
The following resources have been collated to assist in sharing knowledge for the current season with hub partners, grower groups and individuals. Further information can be found in project pages, through our Hub partners directly, or through the national Hub network.
If your group would like support to upskill on any of these topics, contact a SA Drought Hub staff member for sponsorship support.
The Future Drought Fund’s My Climate View (formerly Climate Services for Agriculture)
The Future Drought Fund’s My Climate View (formerly Climate Services for Agriculture) tool provides users with location-specific information on seasonal and monthly rainfall outlooks, and medium and longer term climate projections for rainfall and temperature.
The tool can be accessed at: myclimateview.com.au
Managing dry times and drought: planning for resilience and recovery
Dry times and drought pose a key risk to farm businesses. Farmers, pastoralists and land managers should develop a management plan to mitigate this risk. This fact sheet summarises why such plans are needed and what they should include.
Download the Managing dry times and drought fact sheet.
For more information on business and risk management for farmers, visit the Department of Primary Industries and Regions website.
Water-Smart Farming Manual – GRDC
Strategies for optimising water use efficiency of your grain growing system
This manual describes the latest research on maximising your rainfall and provides new strategies for increasing your yield, farm profit and resilience to changes in rainfall.
Dealing with the dry – GRDC
Resources from the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) including:
- Agronomy for dry conditions
- Harvest or hay making informed decisions.
Pasture sustainability and management in drought – NSW Department of Primary Industries
This fact sheet from the NSW Department of Primary Industries includes infromation on:
- Causes of stress on pastures
- Factos that need to be considered
- Useful pasture management strategies
- pastures in semi-arid rangelands.
Pasture sustainability and management in drought (nsw.gov.au)
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