All droughts end eventually and a lot of grains industry expertise will come together in Dubbo on February 27-28 to ensure growers know about and understand the latest technology when rain falls and sowing begins again across north west and central New South Wales.

Key sessions at a Grains Research Update for Advisers will focus on the pulse crops essential for sustainable rotations, the challenges of precision agriculture and on-farm cooling, drying and storage of the grain crops that will follow rain.

The annual, two day adviser updates in Dubbo have become a key calendar event for research scientists, private and public sector advisers, representatives of agribusiness and interested growers, who meet to discuss the latest research information.

Updates are organised by The Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC), in association with NSW Agriculture, Queensland’s Departments of Primary Industries (QDPI) and Natural Resources and Mines and the CSIRO.

The GRDC’s coordinator of northern region updates, John Cameron, liaises with local advisers, farmers and agribusiness to ensure all events are relevant to the areas in which they’re held and address priority research information issues.

"Reflecting industry priorities, more than half the Dubbo Adviser Update will be presented in concurrent sessions, allowing researchers to go into greater detail on their topics, with smaller audiences that are more conducive to productive discussion sessions," Mr Cameron said.

"One of the concurrent sessions will be on pulse crops, traditionally been one of the most popular. Co-ordinated by Pulse Australia and NSW Agriculture, this session at Dubbo will look at issues like deep sowing, seed quality, and aschochyta resistance in chickpeas.

"However the virus situation in chickpeas, faba beans and canola was considered so important that they have been added to the general plenary session to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to update their knowledge."

While grain storage is not traditionally core business for many advisers, Mr Cameron says that, properly managed, it can assist growers in cost effective management of harvest time risk and provide substantial return on investment.

Many growers are not using their on-farm grain storage to its potential and recent research by the GRDC indicates that many growers and advisers alike are unaware of the costs and potential benefits involved in storage – particularly relating to the use and management of aeration for cooling or drying grain.

The Dubbo session on grain storage will include a practical demonstration of a working aerated silo, demonstrating aeration, venting, automated controllers, pressure testing, and fumigation.

"That is hands on stuff advisers can use with their grower clients, and I’m sure they will find similar value in presentations on the use of decision support packages in advice to growers and on technology requirements for advising on Precision Agriculture," Mr Cameron said.

"Key researchers and advisers are looking beyond yield mapping in PA. This session will discuss how advisers actually go about giving practical advice on this developing technology, what programs and other software they need and how to convert raw data off the header into useful and useable information.

"While the Dubbo Update on February 27 and 28 primarily targets advisers, growers are welcome to attend. Pre-registration would be appreciated on 02 9482 4930, where full agenda details are also available.