The effect of land treatment in the preceding wet season on yield of linseed in the Ord River Valley

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out at Kimberley Research Station, W.A., in 1960-61 and 1961-62, to test the effects of treatment of land in the wet season prior to growing a dry season irrigated linseed crop. In both experiments, the lowest linseed yields were obtained after a resting fallow, when the land remained uncultivated over the whole wet season, and high yields were obtained after a clean fallow, involving repeated cultivations. However, in the second experiment, equally high yields were obtained after a single early wet season ploughing. Factorial combinations of herbicide and nitrogen fertilizer treatments were superimposed. From the interactions it was concluded that, in the first experiment, the beneficial effects of wet season cultivation were the result of increased available soil nitrogen supply, and, in the second experiment, of increased nitrogen supply and reduction in weed infestation.