Does re-vegetating poor-performing patches in agricultural fields improve ecosystem function in the northern sandplain of the Western Australian wheatbelt?
R. A. Lawes A C and M. B. Dodd BA CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, PO Box 5, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia.
B AgResearch, Ruakura Research Centre, East Street, Private Bag 3123, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand.
C Corresponding author. Present address: Centre for Environment and Life Sciences, Private Mail Bag 5, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia. Email: roger.lawes@csiro.au
Crop and Pasture Science 60(9) 912-920 https://doi.org/10.1071/CP08352
Submitted: 9 October 2008 Accepted: 3 March 2009 Published: 8 September 2009
Abstract
There is an impetus to re-vegetate components of the Western Australian wheatbelt to address salinity and improve ecosystem function. In this study we use precision agriculture (PA) technologies and other methods to identify poor-performing patches for three farms, using historical yield maps to assess the ecological value associated with their potential re-vegetation. We also investigate how these patches changed with varying definitions of poor performance. Overall, poor-performing patches were rare and occupied 11.3, 13.5, and 25.3% of farmland across three farms, using the most aggressive definition of poor performance, which included the greatest proportion of arable land. We subsequently assessed the effect that re-vegetating these patches had on a suite of landscape metrics quantifying ecological value. On two farms, mean patch sizes were less than 1.2 ha for all definitions of poor performance. On the third farm, mean patch size increased from 0.9 ha to 2.6 ha as the definition of poor crop performance was altered to include more arable land. Patches were generally small and dispersed, did not significantly enhance connectivity in the landscape, and were therefore of limited ecological value. In general, re-vegetating poor-performing patches alone will provide little ecological benefit when re-vegetation is restricted to unproductive land. The ecological value of re-vegetation strategies in this landscape will improve only if some additional productive agricultural land is also taken out of production and re-vegetated.
Acknowledgments
We thank Michael Robertson, Trevor Parker, and Blair Parsons of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Floreat, WA, who all had input into this manuscript. We also thank Ian Hyde, Brian McAlpine, and Stuart McAlpine who allowed access to data from their yield monitoring equipment.
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