Online Farm Trials

Online Farm Trials is a collaborative project putting research knowledge online and linking it to national data, opening up new possibilities for smarter farming and better research.

This short documentary film explores the impact of the Online Farm Trials project from the perspectives of key users and researchers.

Farm trials have been a part of Australian farming for many years. Often run by local grower groups on behalf of agricultural communities, testing is also done around the country by government, research organisations and private industry. On-farm trials and test plot trials respond to the questions and concerns of farmers about specific crops in specific regions. They help farmers improve farming productivity and sustainability.

Up to this point the learning from on-farm and trial research has been limited to regions. It’s not that the results haven’t been available. Hard copy trial results in the form of annual research reports have been distributed to communities and stored on farm bookshelves and in libraries and have been available as a resource to researchers. But in practice it has been difficult to compare learning across regions or across time.

The Online Farm Trials project changes everything by putting farm trial research online in a way that is decision useful to agronomists and growers.