SOUTHERN region grain growers have been warned of a heightened risk of frost, due to the developing El Nino event.
Although maximum temperatures are generally warmer than average during El Niño years, decreased cloud cover often leads to cooler than average night-time temperatures, principal climate applications scientist Dr Peter Hayman said.
According to the weather bureau, regions of southern New South Wales and northern Victoria, could experience 15 to 30 per cent more frost days during El Niño, than the historical average.
“Frosts are high-consequence, low-frequency events, which means they are difficult to predict and manage and finding information can be hard,” Dr Hayman said.
The information was released as part of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, through its National Frost initiative.
Dr Hayman, of the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), the research arm of Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA), said damage could not be prevented.
But Dr Hayman said growers could reduce their losses through early identification of damage and implementation of strategies to salvage frosted crops.
Dr Hayman encouraged growers and their advisers to seek information to support their management decisions from the GRDC (www.grdc.com.au), which has produced numerous resources to assist growers in dealing with frost.
The GRDC was continuing its long-term commitment to funding frost-related research, with its recently launched five year initiative focused on identifying and delivering practical genetic, management and environmental solutions to assist growers.
The three-pronged initiative would address: genetics – aiming to develop more frost-tolerant varieties; management – investigating if there are preventive products, stubble and nutrition management practices or other measures that growers could implement to reduce the impact of frost; and environmental prediction – focusing on predicting the impact of frost events on crop yields and mapping frost events at the farm scale to enable better risk management.
One of the GRDC-funded environmental prediction projects involved Dr Hayman and was led by Dr James Risbey from CSIRO.
It would investigate forecast and management options for mitigating extreme temperature impacts on grains.
This project would assess the skill of the Predictive Ocean Atmosphere Model for Australia (POAMA), to forecast a shift in the likelihood of spring frost and heat events in the southern and western GRDC regions.
This assessment would involve comparing past POAMA forecasts with the historical record and improving understanding of how the frequency of these events changed with large scale drivers of atmosphere and ocean circulation.
“We will work with farmers, their advisers and extension providers to incorporate forecasts of the likelihood of frost and heat events into their risk management,” Dr Hayman said.
In the meantime, more information on frost and its impact on crops could be found via:
• The GRDC Managing Frost Risk booklet, http://www.grdc.com.au/GRDC-Booklet-ManagingFrostRisk
• A GRDC Fact Sheet on managing the risk of frost, www.grdc.com.au/GRDC-FS-FrostRisk.
• The GRDC’s Back Pocket Guides to assist with identification of frost damage, www.grdc.com.au/GRDC-BPG-FrostCereals and www.grdc.com.au/GRDC-BPG-FrostPulses.
• GRDC Hot Topic, www.grdc.com.au/FrostedCrop.
• National Frost Initiative videos, www.grdc.com.au/GRDC-Video-NationalFrostInitiativePlaylist.
• Ground Cover article, http://grdc.com.au/Media-Centre/Ground-Cover/Ground-Cover-Issue-116-May-June-2015/Cold-problem-in-the-hot-seat
• Zadoks Growth Scale, a standardised reference scale used to evaluate and measure the plant growth stage in cereals, http://www.nvtonline.com.au/zadoks-growth-scale/
Updated information on El Niño can be found via the Bureau of Meteorology’s website at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/.
