The results show that durum wheat can be grown successfully under irrigation and this should encourage the growth of the durum industry. It is thought that irrigation can lead to a reduction in the pasta making quality of durum wheat. With control over irrigation timing and nitrogen addition, we obtained good quality durum wheat of similar quality to rainfed durum wheat. Varieties were identified with suitability for irrigation. Irrigation could be used by breeders to select for some quality characteristics more efficiently the rainfed durum trials.

Soil salinity is an acute issue in both irrigated and non-irrigated areas of the world. Beneficial soil microbe, such as Bacillus subtilis (GB03), is important to confer salt tolerance in model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, however little is known about its effect on salt tolerance of crop plants, such as wheat. We demonstrated that the application of GB03 can trigger biomass accumulation and improve salt tolerance with lower sodium accumulation in wheat.

A microscopic soil eelworm called root-lesion nematode reduces crop yields worldwide. This study shows how pre-cropping with canaryseed was a better option for battling this pest when growing chickpea and wheat. Canaryseed increased yields by keeping nematode numbers low throughout the soil and not inhibiting friendly fungi which aid in plant nutrient uptake. This research benefits the Australian grain industry by providing valuable crop rotational information and a non chemical strategy for estimating yield loss that will contribute to breeding chickpeas with greater genetic tolerance and resistance to root-lesion nematode.

Legumes such as chickpea can substantially reduce fertiliser costs on farm through their ability to nodulate and fix atmospheric nitrogen. However, farmers in Australia’s northern grains regions are concerned that yields of chickpea are reduced because of low nodulation and nitrogen fixation. This 3-year field study and farmer survey showed that water supply and agronomic management, rather than nitrogen, determined chickpea yields although inoculation at sowing could be improved in some cases.

Sustainable sources of energy, food and bio-products are gaining increasingly importance in the world and Camelina sativa crop seems to have the potential to address all these items. For the first time, the agronomic performance of various camelina genotypes was evaluated in Italy and it was found that camelina can be suitably cultivated in northern Italy, although further germplasm and agronomic technique improvements are necessary. Results contribute to draw the potential scenario of a sustainable exploitation of natural resources.

Among rice ecosystems, the greatest weed pressure and competition occurs in aerobic rice. Synthetic herbicides are effective in controlling rice field weed, but the repeated use of same herbicides has caused development of resistance to the herbicides. Dibutyl phthalate (DBP), an alleochemical isolated from golden beard grass, reduced the emergence and growth of sprangletop, with negligible effect on aerobic rice seedlings. These findings suggest that DBP has potential to be developed as a pre-emergence, soil-applied natural herbicide for control of sprangletop and other weeds in aerobic rice system.

The ability to natural reseeding of Vicia villosa from the soil seed-bank was associated with the presence of seed dormancy. The developed model on this study was capable of predicting the fraction of the seed population that will germinate according to its dormancy status under a semiarid thermal regime. Predicting dormancy status of V. villosa is necessary for develop management decision tools for reduce production costs, fertiliser use and improve the sustainability in fragile ecosystems.

As observed from the results of this study, the differences in fermentation and methane production of perennial grasses showed that, it is possible to reduce enteric methane production from grazers, by selective feeding/grazing of low methane producing grass species. Under farmers and pastoral condition of tropical Africa, this may also be better option to improve animal’s productivity and reduce associated enteric methane production.