Ways to keep stubble for sowing programs and avoid 'using the matches'

Meanwhile, part of their investigation included looking into long-term solutions and red wheat varieties for resilience.

VicNoTill president and farmer Dan Fox, Marrar, NSW said the stubble management workshops had about 50 attendees at Riverina, NSW, and 30 at Kyabram, Victoria.

The stubble management topics included efficient stubble heights, improving animal performance, pest control and more.

"The main piece of the day was that we can digest our stubbles, not burn them," he said.

"It's part of the soil health principles we're promoting is we have to maintain ground cover.

"If we do set fire to it, obviously we're baring our soil off which exposes it to erosion and evaporation."

He said the workshop aimed to help farmers access the necessary information while planning their sowing programs.

Mr Fox said the Kyabram host location used a fungal inoculate trial product to break down the feedbase in the straw and release nutrition.

"Instead of removing them with baling the straw and selling it, we can compost it with these fungal inoculants to get the most out of it," he said.

Mr Fox said they had a stripper front seeding system and wanted to maintain as much residue as possible.

"Knocking that straw down at planting time, we had issues with tying nutrition up at the start in a period of time where we want as much nutrition for that seedling as possible," he said.

"What we'll try on our place is replicate crimp-rolling our stubbles and give them eight weeks to break down in front of the seeder, at the same time maintaining our groundcover.

"Ideally we want to keep it all, and have it compost in the paddock."

Mr Fox said the two properties between Riverina, NSW, and Kyabram had entirely different soil types, one with livestock and one without, and one used fungicide.

"There was still fungal decomposition to an extent [at Riverina], whereas the one at Kyabram, if it was on my place without a fungicide I would expect more decomposition," he said.

"It's a reflection more of the farming system rather than weather and soil."

He said he believed many residue issues farmers were facing were from crop management and disease prevention.

Mr Fox said he believed the workshops were well-attended because there was a growing interest in wanting to avoid "using the matches" and retain residues.

He said VicNoTill members were currently looking into imported red wheat varieties, which faced high disease burdens but maintained high yield potential.

"We want to develop resilient farming systems so we need to be growing resilient cultivars," Mr Fox said.

"We, as Australian breeders and Australian farmers, should be looking to the genetics in these sorts of areas.

"The cheapest compost you can buy is the one you grow."