Information
Level 2 Detail of experimental conditions (what might be found in a journal paper or project brief in Hydstra)
Description of study
What?
More specific objectives of the study include:
- Determine fertiliser application efficiencies from field nutrients balance under conventional and best bet management practices;
- Measure the quantities of nutrients and sediment being removed from agricultural fields and determine the mechanisms and pathways of their removal;
- Using data from (i) and (ii) apply existing water sediment simulation models to determine significant rainfall, soil and agricultural management interactions leading to losses;
- Determine land and crop management strategies which have a major effect on improving fertiliser application efficiency, thus minimising the export of nutrients and sediment;
- Extend the results and outcomes to industry and community groups.
- This study requires the measurement of the quantity nutrients and sediment moving off commercial agricultural fields and the determination of the mechanisms and pathways of the movement
When and Where?
The project commenced in 1992 to 1995. The season were divided into 1992/93, 1993/94 and 1994/95.
All sites where located on Ferrosol soils of the Johnson River catchments and comprised of convention and best bet management practices for sugarcane, bananas and dairy pastures with a rainforest site instrumented for base line nutrient data collection.
How?
The method of collecting the data for nitrogen was to measure the fertiliser and rainfall input, runoff and leaching losses and crop removal. The mineralisation or immobilisation of Nitrogen was measured by the change in soil mineral nitrogen status and the change in the easily mineralisable nitrogen between planting or harvesting and the following harvesting of each crop.
The sum of the phosphorus input and outputs were assumed to be an addition to or depletion from the soil phosphorus pool.
The sites were installed with flumes, automatic runoff samples, lysimeters and automatic wealth station to enable measurement of all the hydrologic components. Soil and plant sampling allowed a balance to be developed at each site for nitrogen and phosphorus.
Project administration
Site identifier code: N/A
Principal investigator: Prove B
Principal data manager: N/A
Principal organizations: Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Sugar Research and Development Corporation
Data custodian: Queensland Department of Natural Resources
Key co-operators: National Landcare Program, Incitec Pty Ltd, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Wet Tropics Management Authority
Data access policy: Research has been published but base data is not archived
Planned pathway for data: completed study, no evidence of formal database records.
Data warehousing: for ongoing studies N/A
Planned data upload frequency: for ongoing studies N/A
Key references and sources of this data synthesis
These data summaries have been extracted from:
- Prove B, Moody P, Reghenzani J. (1998). Nutrient balances and transport from agricultural and rainforest lands: a case study in the Johnstone River catchment.
Keywords:
Runoff, drainage, nutrients, rainforest