Information

Level 2 Detail of experimental conditions (what might be found in a journal paper or project brief in Hydrstra)

Description of the Study

What?

This study measured the rate of soil erosion on sloping sugarcane lands under conventional cultivation and various no-tillage surface management practices.

When and Where?

From 1982-1984 (2 years) a study was undertaken on a commercial farm in Babinda, 50 km north of Innisfail. The site’s slope is 16% with a slope length of 60 m. The Nerada site slope is 8% on Krasnozems (Basaltic parent material).

How?

Management practices investigated included: Conventional cultivation practices (including burning before harvest and tilling); and three no cultivation practices (retention of harvest residues after green cane harvest, no cultivation after harvest of burnt cane, no cultivation after harvest of burnt cane and removal of harvest residue).

Measurements were taken in 2 adjacent inter-rows at 10m intervals, each plot was at least 100 m in length and 9 to 9.6 m in width.

Soil erosion was quantified using a profilemeter, measuring the height of the soil profiles before and after erosion events. Bulk density measurements were obtained using soil cores to 30 cm.

Soil compaction was measured using a penetrometer. Forty penetrations were recorded, at 3 sampling times equal to pre-harvest, post harvest and cultivation.

Rainfall data was recorded at the South Johnston Research Station (17º30’S, 166ºE), within a 50km proximity to the site.

Project administration

Site identifier code: N/A

Principle investigator: BG Prove

Principle data manager: N/A

Principle organisations: Queensland Department of Primary Industries and CSIRO

Data custodian: N/A

Key co-operators: V and R Caltabiano of Nerada

Data access policy: N/A

Planned pathway for data: Research has been published but base data is not available

Data warehousing: for ongoing studies N/A

Planned data upload frequency for ongoing studies: for ongoing studies N/A

Key references and sources of this data synthesis

These data summaries have been extracted from:

Prove BG, Doogan VJ, Truong PNV. (1995). ‘Nature and magnitude of soil erosion in sugarcane land on the wet tropical cost of north-eastern Queensland’, vol. 35, pp. 641-649.

Keywords

Sugarcane, sediment loss and water quality

 

 

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