RR Gault

TL;DR: On-farm and experimental measures of the proportion (%Ndfa) and amounts of N2 fixed were undertaken for 158 pastures either based on annual legume species, or lucerne, or winter pulse crops over a 1200 km north-south transect of eastern Australia, providing new insights into differences in factors controlling N2 fixation in the main agricultural systems.

TL;DR: Levels of nitrogen fixation and yield achieved on-farm were measured in commercial faba beans and other winter and summer legume crops sown after cotton over 3 years to assess the relative inputs of fixed nitrogen into this system.

TL;DR: It is proposed that lucerne-based pastures could represent a more reliable means of improving soil fertility for subsequent crops than annual pastures.

TL;DR: The results suggest that lucerne pastures and improved crop management can result in greater use of rainfall than the previous farming systems based on annual pastures, fallows, and poorly managed crops.

TL;DR: It is concluded that growing winter cereals on land newly broken from pasture, coupled with high rates of inoculation of the following soybeans, may be a profitable way of diminishing plant-available soil nitrogen, thus maximizing the contribution of nitrogen from N2 fixation with benefits in seed yield and protein content.