Afternoon everyone, again I did speak a bit earlier to some of you that were here but I'm just going to continue the theme with establishment. So obviously it's something that's current, you know we're coming into planting season CQR are pulling the planters into the fields this week as we speak.

I just want to, basically we're going to have a look at some work again with machine learning and please don't ask me any questions about machine learning either but basically this is not necessarily new work. We've got a an enormous data set from our variety trial and ambassador program over the years and we wanted to look at that to basically dig out some of the factors that are affecting establishment and then how those factors interact with each other. You'll see there it's a huge data set once again, so we've got 9 years of data across our variety trials and ambassador program. That's incorporating about 1261 crops across the entire industry spread from south to north.

We've got crops that we monitor down in the southern regions, we've got crops up in the Northern Territory, far north Queensland and WA and everywhere in between.

In terms of what we do with our our variety trials program and our ambassador program we have a fairly tight standard about how we do our establishments. Five metre segments across three replicates for each variety and then those uh punched into our variety trial program uh affectionately known as ERICA you'll see there in the middle. We have about 40 factors within that data set that we've been measuring throughout the season that can be related back to establishment. You'll see some of those in a moment.

Again we took that data set out of ERICA and what we've got in there we punched it into a machine learning program and then we asked it to look at the variables that are affecting establishment and what those interactions are between those variables.

Initially 40 factors were fed into that machine learning program. About 27 of them popped out as factors that significantly affected establishment. You'll see some of them on the left there and and there's a better slide of this coming up in a moment with a better graph a bit more clear, but basically what we did was we looked at those 27 variables and we decided some of these are really closely related, and they affected each other really closely so we can refine this list down further.

Things like temperature maximums, temperature minimums, average temperatures, day degrees obviously very closely related. We're able to incorporate some of those features and refine the list down and we refine that down to a further 12, to the next 12 variables which you'll see on this slide here.

Key thing to note with these variables. Yes they are independent but they all interact with each other, and these variables could have a positive or negative effect on establishment.

What we did then we looked at the variables and we basically grouped them. So you'll see the color coding in these bars on the graph there and these will relate to the whizbang triangle that we came up with in our next slide that we will sort of work out how those relationships work.

Basically the green line at the top there was something that stood out and this was the variable that had the most effect on establishment: seed imbibation date. There's probably no real revelation here, so obviously that's highly related to locality and conditions and driven by those factors as well. So if you're in the South as Sarah mentioned you've got a fairly tight window to plant into.

Your seat imbibation date - that window is going to be tighter and that obviously is going to relate heavily to the temperatures that you're affecting at that time, that you're receiving at that time.

The next the next set of variables there are the blue ones, and these are directly related to temperature as you'll see there. The seven day outlook or the 1532 day degrees and soil temperature: they're our two temperature related variables.

The next section, which is the the greatest section as it as it incorporated is our yellow lines here and they are our agronomic factors. Things that we can control. So planting rate, stubble cover, planting speed, planting depth, field condition score (and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment) and the establishment method, be that pre- irrigated, watered up or planting into moisture.

And then pink lines there the final set of variables are our seed quality things so um we've heard a lot about this today so seeds per kilogram, seven day cool germ and seven day warm germ and obviously we've heard a lot about that from Hannah.

As I mentioned we put this into a bit of a something that we could sort of look at and work out how these variables interact and just the relationship between them and what we need to consider as we're trying to establish a crop.

You'll see there those numbers that we've quantified, so 18% up the top here relates directly to seed quality. Down the right hand side in the blue but relating back to those bars in the graph are our temperature effects. Down the bottom standing on its own as was at the top of the graph is the planning date or the seed imbibition date. And then the largest factor you'll see there as a as a group is the agronomic factors.

So the key thing that we pulled out of this work I guess was that obviously these factors are all interacting to ensure we get a successful establishment. So when one factor is not ideal we may have an opportunity to compensate with other factors to get that uh successful establishment.

On that I just I guess I just wanted to go back and recap some of the tools and the ideas that we do have around successful establishment. If you're starting to think about planting you're looking at your field and you're saying okay I've got a really great field preparation here, my seed lots have arrived and I've got good quality seed lots - what's the next thing I need to consider? It's my temperature and you may be able to work with that as Sarah spoke about with what she was doing down south.

You may look at it and you say well my field condition, my field prep is not exactly where I want it to be so what do I need to look at then I can compensate through working with my temperature in terms of getting that establishment.

All these things are/a lot of these things are covered in our FastStart Establishment Guide and we've spoken a bit about the FastStart program today. All those factors there are covered in some way or shape or form within that booklet.

Something I did just want to note here in terms of disease and insect levels, obviously very important and that's been mentioned today as well in terms of getting props established. As part of our variety trials program we don't tend to measure/quantify all those sorts of in terms of disease we obviously make notes of disease impacts in the soil and when we're doing our establishment, the same with insects but we don't have a quantitative list of those in our program so we weren't able to feed that into the machine learning program. Obviously do understand that it has a great impact on establishment, so another consideration.

The traffic light system you've all seen this, we've spoken about this endlessly but it is very relevant going into the planting/as we move towards planting.

As you just saw there with Patto's presentation our two variables down the bottom there: soil temperature at 10 cm above 14 degrees at 8:00 a.m. and obviously a forecast on a rising plane.

What we did want to mention here is we understand that you will not always get a green light or you may not always get a green light and I talked about the traffic light system at the Cotton Conference two years ago in a presentation and a couple of the you know I had a few people come up to me after the presentation said that was really great but we don't always get a green light.

And we do recognize that so you may be planning on an amber light, that's fine but you do then need to consider these other factors and which ones are the most important in making up that ground.

A key one here again if I mentioned you might have your field preparation really looking really great but you know your temperature and those sorts of things aren't going to be the best, so variety choice (tailing on the back of what Hannah about earlier) variety choice, seed density type (normal vs low density) and again on speaking on the back of what Sarah spoke about with order of planning with your varieties and your AUSLOTs.

And I just thought it was was it was pretty important to put this little graph up here again. This is in the FastStart guide and we've spoken about this a lot but this is the work some of the work that Hannah and her team have done previous years, looking at normal density seed lots on the left (and I realize that these varieties are older varieties now, the work um has been updated however this this still stands to reason) in terms of the varieties on the left are our normal density seed lots and the varieties on the right represent low density seed varieties.

You'll see there the green bars are optimal conditions and there's very little difference between establishment under those conditions. However when we move to the stress conditions and the gray bars you'll see that there's a greater increase in lack of establishment between the lower density seed lots and the normal density seed lots.

Field condition score, I won't go through all of this obviously again this is something from the FastStart guide but it is something that we can use in terms of ensuring that we've got the best conditions set up for establishment and again relating back to those variables. So obviously you know you would be aiming to try and get a field condition score of one but if you're in somewhere that's Central Queensland for instance where you've got long season crops and you're trying to turn crops around really back quickly to go back into cotton again, you're obviously going to be really up against it to try and get a field condition score of one. That's where you'll be looking at some of these other variables to try and get those results.

It's really simple but something that may be overlooked and something that we really need to consider. So planter maintenance, checking that simple planter checklist that we've got in there, planting speed obviously these relate back to all the agronomic factors that were in that list, that 42% of factors. So planting rate, again whether you need to bump up your seeding rate if you don't have the best seed conditions, the seed bed conditions or maybe your your germ is down a little bit. Planting depth, again is a consideration and then obviously establishment method. So whether you're going to plant and water up or whether you're going to pre irrigate or in a dryland situation perhaps planting into moisture.

So I guess just to summarize, just wanted to touch back on the the traffic light system again and really exciting to see that FastStart Field Forecast model coming through, so keep an eye out for that. I'm understanding that it's not too far away at all. Using that in conjunction with the FastStart soil temperature network this year is going to be really important and another tool in the toolbox to help with that establishment.

And again just to consider you know those factors affecting establishment, how they all interact with each other. But the opportunity is there if we don't have something exactly where we want it to be use, some of those other factors to try and compensate and hopefully we can get the best establishment we can possibly get. Thank you.