Identifying potassium responsive soils and best practice application of K in the MRZ and HRZ of the southern region - K response trials

The primary goal of this pilot study was to establish whether the scattered reports of K deficiency in broad-acre crops growing on heavier soils of south-eastern Australia are indicating an emerging issue for the grains industry in these areas and hence an opportunity for growers to improve their productivity and profitability. If the issue were to be confirmed, then the project had secondary goals of:investigating whether existing soil and plant testing thresholds were still relevant as diagnostic tools for crops in current farming systems,assessing the efficacy of application strategies for treating K deficiency in current farming systems, andensuring that growers understand the value of soil and plant testing to diagnose K deficiency and at least 60 growers will be able to economically assess the best practice application to remediate K deficiencies and manage K levels long term to avoid future deficiency.