Australian Cropping Systems in a ‘Climate of Change'.

Change has always been present however, agriculture systems in general is facing change at an unprecedented rate from a range of significant causes. We consider changes that Australian cropping systems face with: ‘climate change’ in the meteorological sense; regulatory issues; rising costs of production; and competition for scarce land and water resources from other commodities. In Australia for crops ‘climate change’ per se will influence production directly through rising CO2 levels, exposure to higher temperatures, have less water availability, and be exposed to greater extremes in climate. Indirect effects will likely results from a range of government regulations aimed at climate change mitigation. To combat these changes, as well as dealing with increasing costs will mean that sustainable production will need to adopt practices in combination that will: increase and/or maintain high yields and quality; improve a range of production efficiencies (water, nitrogen, energy, emissions etc.); seek to improve a better return for products; or consider other cropping options as alternatives. We present impacts of these changes on production systems and highlight some options for adaptation. Crop management and plant breeding options include high yielding/high quality stress tolerant varieties; exploiting GxExM; optimizing water and nutrition; manipulating crop maturity; varying planting time; optimizing soil and health for crop nutrition; and maintaining diligent monitoring practices for weeds, pests and diseases to enable responsive management.