Rows of impressive figures might be a scientist’s dream, but when it comes to battling the elements to extract a profitable yield, some growers doubt their functionality.

Agricultural Production Simulation models are readily used in crop research to project yield results when comparing differing variables, such as weather, nitrogen applications, variety choice, rotations and the like. But are these models useful, or is the benefit they offer as hypothetical as the scenarios they evaluate?

One way they help is by generating large bodies of information that can assist in identifying anomalies that may not be apparent, season by season. For example, recent Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC) supported research at the CSIRO produced information that may persuade growers to persist with canola and capture returns on a resurgent crop.

Although two challenging seasons saw local canola plantings slump more than 40 per cent, to 300,000 hectares last year, the research shows that canola is not a failing crop in WA. Rather, it is simply an unfortunate coincidence that the past two seasons were among the worst 10 per cent of canola growing seasons.

While the research focused on Kojonup and Mullewa, the spread between short and long season environments, coupled with anecdotal evidence from elsewhere, suggests canola’s problems were widespread. The research concluded that it should be regarded more as an opportunistic crop, planted in suitable seasons, but perhaps not as a staple.

Only by using a model to project canola performance across 100 years worth of seasons was it evident just what odds growers had confronted in the past two seasons. As canola is a relatively new crop to WA, that sort of data would not have been available for another 70 years.

Traditionally, plant breeding has delivered a new wheat variety every four years and this is accelerating with the proliferation of private breeding companies and consolidated, well resourced public breeding organisations such as Enterprise Grains Australia.

As these new varieties enter growers’ repertoires, information is needed to gauge their suitability for specific farming systems. Despite extensive GRDC supported crop variety testing, the body of information may never be complete from all areas before another new variety emerges.