Stakeholders have challenged the relevance of critical soil-test phosphorus (P) values for pastures determined from the Better Fertiliser Decisions for Pastures (BFDP) meta-analysis to soils and contemporary pasture species in south-western Australia. We present results from 50 rate-response trials using contemporary pasture species compared with BFDP critical soil-test P values. The work should increase confidence in and use of critical soil-test P values in support of evidence-based P fertiliser advice, to minimise off-site impacts of P to waterways and plan fertiliser applications.

Researchers have been accumulating information concerning the locations of major and minor genes in cultivated oat (Avena sativa L.) for over 100 years. In this work, we created an inventory of those genes, and assigned positions for most of them on sequenced physical oat chromosomes. This work, plus the accompanying resources, will assist researchers studying oat genetics and breeding for new oat varieties.

Innovative technologies and management strategies are continually being developed to mitigate risks associated with climate change. We hypothesised that formation of a large rhizosheath may buffer wheat seedlings during extended false-break conditions to keep plants alive until the next rainfall. In glasshouse experiments with two soil types, the ability to form large rhizosheaths explained ~80% of the variability in crop establishment under various scenarios of false-break conditions.