Yield responses to amelioration treatments that improve the productivity of sandy soils in the Southern Australian Cropping Region

'Sandy_soil_DB' - Database (see files tab) and a 'R shiny Sandbox app' (see link in services tab) that allows the user to explore yield responses to treatments for increasing production on sandy soils in low and medium rainfall areas of the Southern Region.\n\nThe database is a collection of trial results in the Southern cropping region from the Grains Research & Development Corporation CSP00203 project reporting on yield results, but also contains plant responses, such as plant establishment and biomass for a selection of sites / years. The aim of the Sandy Soils project is to boost crop yields by increasing crop water in underperforming sandy soils by improving the diagnosis and management of constraints. Crop water-use and yields on sandy soils are commonly limited by a range of soil constraints that reduce root growth. Constraints can include a compacted or hard-setting layer preventing root proliferation, a water-repellent surface layer causing poor crop establishment, soil pH issues (both acidity and alkalinity) and/or poor nutrient supply.\nThe trails were established between 2014 and 2021 and included a range of deep ripping (30-60cm deep), spading, inclusion ripping and/or inversion ploughing approaches, with/without additional amendments (fertiliser, N-rich hay, chicken manure, clay), in total the project consisted of 136 site.years of amelioration trial data and 1 site.year of seeder-strategy trial data, across 24 sites in Southern grain region. Additional site metadata includes soil constraints and climate data. The database provides statistical analysis of the yield results, which was undertaken on a site-by-year basis and site-by-cumulative years.\n\nThe App is an interactive web application that allows the user to interrogate and visualise trial results alongside site climate and soil constraint information. This helps grain growers evaluate the outcomes of various amelioration options in the context of their own soils and climate. A series of fact sheets relating to soil constraint identification and machinery selection and optimisation support the user to view the most useful results and to identify the most suitable management options. \n\nLineage: The trial program consisted of 24 trials across the Southern Cropping Region of Australia in the low to medium rainfall environment. All sites had constraints of one or a combination of; high soil strength, water repellence or poor soil fertility. Research experiments were established between 2014 and 2020 and included a range of deep ripping, spading and/or ploughing approaches, with/without additional amendments (fertiliser, N-rich hay, chicken manure, clay). All trials monitored the impact of amelioration on crop growth and yield. More detailed description of the experimental approach is outlined in Unkovich et al. (2023).\n\nThe database provides soil constraints, plant responses and site climate and metadata for all trial sites. The database and App include data analysis outputs at the level of the site and are consolidated by treatment. Statistical analysis is reported for site by year and site by cumulative yields (for all the years the trial was run) using one-way ANOVA analysis and multiple comparisons of treatments by means of LSD and a grouping of treatments. The level by alpha is set at 0.1. The analysis was performed in R studio using the stats and agricolae packages. \n\n