By maintaining experiments for more than 5 years, the project will address the most challenging problems of managing hostile soils.
Dr Murray Hart, Soil CRC Project Leader
2024 HIGHLIGHTS
We approved funding for 9 new research projects
We welcomed 6 new PhD students in 2023-24 and saw 3 students complete their PhD
We registered 2 new trade marks with IP Australia
Soil CRC PhD student Reuben Mah was announced the winner of Cooperative Research Australia’s 2024 Early Career Researchers competition
We received a $3.94 million grant from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund to help Australia’s farmers prepare for future drought
We received funding from the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water to deliver soil carbon capacity building resources for farmers and advisors
CASE STUDY
Integrated Solutions for Accessing Soil Moisture
Many Australian crops are not reaching the potential yields of the rainfall they receive. That is because the soils in which they grow have physical and chemical components, usually in the subsoil, that are limiting root growth. This limits a plant’s usage of available water and reduces nutrient uptake. This reduction in yield represents major opportunity losses for growers.
Integrated solutions for underperforming constrained soils: accessing soil moisture (4.2.004) is quantifying crop responses to different management practices, on key soils across 4 cropping regions. The project is a collaboration between the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Agriculture Victoria, Murdoch University, Charles Sturt University and Burdekin Productivity Services.
Understanding how subsoil affects a crop’s ability to access water is an important step in improving both productivity and water use efficiency, as transpiration (water’s movement through a plant) is linked to crop yields.
“The ability of roots to grow through soil unhindered by physical or chemical constraints is key to making full use of the available water resources,” said Dr Murray Hart, Project Leader and Research Officer at the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.
Long-term sites enable testing of multiple variables
The project has established one medium-term and 3 long-term (5 plus years) trial sites: Wonwondah in Victoria (medium-term site), Lockhart in New South Wales, Clare in Queensland and Kweda in Western Australia.
The sites are putting recent advances in soil amelioration (improving quality with either inorganic or organic chemical products) techniques into practice, to enhance understanding of how these techniques can improve crop rooting depth, water use, productivity and ultimately – yield.
The project is also assessing the amelioration strategies from an economic perspective, to help farmers choose the right strategies for them.
“Economic assessments of amelioration strategies will be developed to guide the adoption of better soil management strategies by farmers. By maintaining experiments for more than 5 years, the project will address the most challenging problems of managing hostile soils,” said Dr Hart.
Findings from the sites to date have been varied. A benefit of long-term sites is that practices can be tested over multiple seasons, with some ameliorants not showing benefits in their first application. This is often the case for soils with constraints including high sodium or dispersiveness – where soils collapse when wet.
It also allows for techniques to be tested in different weather conditions. High rainfall can reduce the impact of soil constraints, so understanding how soil will respond to these conditions can help growers be more efficient with ameliorant application.
Between them, the sites are testing amelioration effects on sugarcane, and broadacre crops such as barley, lupin, faba bean, canola and wheat.
Sugarcane ameliorants in focus
Burdekin Productivity Services (BPS), a levy-funded sugarcane agronomic service and Soil CRC participant, is managing the Clare site in Queensland. Rob Milla, Manager at BPS, said it’s great to be able to test novel soil treatments for sugarcane within the region.
Some soils in the region are quite challenging for growers, including heavy clays that are sodic with a high moisture content.
“The site presents several soil constraints including compacted and structureless subsoil that is sodic and magnesic, making it an ideal candidate for treatment. To assess the extent of these constraints, soil pits were dug prior to establishment, revealing waterlogged soils from approximately 20cm down.”
Because of the long growing season for sugarcane, the site has only had one harvest so far – in July 2024. It was a high-yielding season with minimal difference observed from the amendments utilised at the site – different combinations of gypsum, mill mud and ash, compost, reactive silicate and FOGO (food organics and green organics) outputs.
Addressing subsoil amelioration is complex
Climatic conditions have a huge impact on amendments. In dry conditions, especially in early growth stages, a lack of moisture can prevent amendments from improving soils. If conditions are much wetter than average, crops may not be water-limited and can effectively bypass otherwise significant constraints.
Initial results indicate that organic matter has the potential to improve water use and crop productivity for sodic, clay soils in Victoria and New South Wales – provided they have a minimum carbon to nitrogen ratio.
It is too early for the effectiveness of the ameliorants to be attributed to improved nutrition, better physiochemical conditions or a combination, but ongoing testing will provide further insights.
Capitalising on established field sites
Three of the trial sites from this project will be extended, under a follow-on Soil CRC project: Capitalising on established field trials for ameliorating (sub)soil constraints (4.2.006). A further 3 sites from other Soil CRC projects will also be extended under the project.
Led by Professor Richard Bell from Murdoch University, the project will continue investigations for 2 more cropping seasons. This will enable the capture of more data on climate variability, as well as economic analysis of outcomes.
Program 1: Investing in high performance soils
Professor Catherine Allan – Project Leader Charles Stuart University
Research activities in Program 1 are focused on social and economic aspects of soil stewardship. The distinction between ‘researcher’ and ‘participant’ has blurred, as diverse forms of collaborating emerge, including farmer-group-led research projects. Across the program, collaborations happen among researchers and practitioners from 11 grower groups, 7 universities and 5 industry partners. Six PhD students/graduates are contributing knowledge and expertise to this area of work.
In 2023-24, our participants continued to develop an extensive ‘public good package’ of information and capacity building activities for researchers, farmer groups and Soil CRC partners.
Our researchers articulated the elements of soil stewardship verification approaches to meet the needs of consumers and financial markets, commenced the next round of our national social benchmarking surveys, and completed a project supporting farmer groups’ innovations.
The lessons learned this year add to the growing, comprehensive portfolios of support for soil stewardship.
Program 2: Soil performance metrics
Associate Professor Richard Doyle – Project Leader University of Tasmania
Program 2 seeks to better understand indicators of soil performance and how these can be used to enhance soil productivity. Twenty grower groups, 5 universities, 2 government research partners and 11 PhD students are developing tools linked to soil management products that will help farmers better manage their soils for increased productivity and profitability.
Projects in Program 2 continued to develop a range of technologies that will enable farmers to cost-effectively collect data to monitor soil performance. Our researchers progressed development of the BILBY® underground communication node, the BANDICOOT® soil moisture and strength probe and the QUOLL® soil electronic nose. The Soil CRC secured a registered trademark for the latter two devices in 2023-24, enabling future commercialisation of the technology.
Significant progress was also made on our Lab-on-a-Chip technology, which integrates a 3D-printed microfluidic device with a smartphone app to measure soil nutrients, and we continued to build on our Visualising Australasia’s Soils database and portal.
Additionally, we completed critical research to match soil performance indicators to farming systems, and to enhance research data management across the Soil CRC.
Program 3: New projects for soil fertility and function
Professor Megharaj Mallavarapu – Project Leader University of Newcastle
Program 3 aims to develop new fertiliser formulations, pesticide delivery systems, soil enhancements, microbial carrier products and improved mechanisms for delivering these solutions to farmers. These pursuits collectively aim to enhance soil performance and productivity for farmers. This program brings together 7 grower groups, 7 universities, and 3 industry partners. There are 12 active projects and 8 completed projects, with 12 current PhD students and 6 PhD completions.
Researchers in Program 3 have made significant progress, with the successful synthesis of micro-lime and micro-gypsum products, along with the creation of innovative biochars and biochar-clay composites, microbial carriers and high moisture retention products.
The effective synthesis of novel biochar from the waste streams highlights the program’s commitment to resource recovery for potential fertiliser applications, helping to develop the circular economy and reduce the reliance on chemical or synthetic fertilisers.
Program 4: Integrated soil management solutions
Dr Lukas Van Zwieten – Project Leader NSW Department of Primary Industries
Program 4 aims to develop cost-effective and sustainable soil management solutions to build more productive and resilient soil. This will underpin a dynamic, sustainable, and profitable Australian agriculture sector. The projects within Program 4 engage with 15 grower groups, 7 universities, 2 government research partners and 8 current PhD students.
In Program 4, 15 field trials across Australia are delivering information that is being used in the development of models to predict the impacts of soil constraints and their amelioration.
Our research is ground-truthing the role of cover crops and investigating how these systems approaches can build soil carbon and resilience.
Field sites continue to address a range of vexing constraints to productivity, and we have developed novel ways of representing and predicting the impact of soil constraints on crop production in models and decision support tools.
PhD student program
The Soil CRC’s PhD student program underpins our 4 research programs to build capability in the future of Australia’s soil research.
Our PhD cohort brings together a huge wealth of knowledge, experiences, professional networks, and capabilities for our students to engage with and learn from. Students are enrolled at 12 universities across Australia, are aged between 25 and 76 years, and reflect a wide range of disciplines and cultural backgrounds.
In 2023–24, we welcomed 6 new PhD students and saw 3 students complete their PhDs, bringing the total number of active students to 39 and the total number of completions to 7.
In their words
“I’ve really enjoyed working on a real-world challenge that has the potential to advance society and contribute to a sustainable future. I also love being part of the soil science community. I’ve truly appreciated the support of my supervisors, the Soil CRC and University of Western Australia staff and coworkers – they have been amazing.” James O’Connor, University of
Western Australia
