The Activating markets to create incentives for improved soil management literature scoping study identified the lack of research on what consumers know about soil stewardship and its effects on consumer demand.

In the current market, there are few incentives for the good soil management. To address this, farmers need a better understanding of the consumer demand for soil stewardship and their willingness to pay. Once this is determined, communication strategies and materials will be developed to promote good soil stewardship to consumers, then the requirements and potential use of this information by food processors will be examined.

This project will develop and trial a range of different communication materials to educate and promote soil stewardship to consumers in order to determine whether consumers are willing to pay more for food that has been produced using good soil stewardship practices.

The project will also engage with value chain stakeholders to better understand their potential demand for information about consumer’s willingness to pay, perceived obstacles for its use, and specific information requirements for rewarding farmers for quality practices.

Involving and researching value-chain stakeholders is critical for achieving the goal of financially rewarding famers for improved soil stewardship. Even if consumers are found to be willing to pay for soil stewardship, and this can be activated through effective communications, the end-goal of rewarding farmers through higher prices for their products will not be achieved without the cooperation of critical value chain stakeholders such as food manufacturers and retailers. These intermediaries are essential for presenting soil stewardship attributes on their products and providing financial incentives for landholders.

Farmer uptake of soil management programs and techniques is historically, relatively slow. This project sets out to understand why farmers do not adopt soil management improvement programs. It will investigate whether current strategies and techniques for adoption are working. It examine the commonalities, differences and effectiveness of soil improvement priorities, drivers and pathways.

The project will examine and identify the social drivers that influence adoptability of improved soil management at the farm scale. This will lead to a second phase of understanding the policies and institutional settings that promote adoption. By addressing the issues that lead to a lack of adoption of soil management programs, we will begin to ensure an increase in adoption in the future.

The project team will partner with farming groups across five states to develop a criteria for adoptability that will lead to an increase in adoption of improved soil management practices. Not only will this criteria help future Soil CRC projects to ensure uptake of new research findings, but will be of broader use for the farming community.

The collective behaviour of individual farmers can have a significant impact on the broader health of the economy and natural resources of Australia. It is with this understanding that practices and products are being developed within the Soil CRC to influence some of these behaviours.

This project initiated the process of surveying a range of land managers to better understand their current practices, the influences on their decision-making, and how they believe they will be farming in the future. Three regions were surveyed as part of this project: the Western Australian Wheatbelt, the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia and North Central Victoria.

A follow-on project, ‘What drives farmer decisions?‘, surveyed three additional regions to complete the first round of surveys. Land managers across all six regions will be surveyed again to help develop a longitudinal understanding of farmer practices, aspirations and motivations.

The data from the survey project is being used by the Soil CRC and our partners to better target our innovations and communications and inform strategic planning.

The aim of this review was to determine which indicators would be most practical to improve profitability for Australian farmers.

This included examining whether we have suitable data available to measure and monitor trends, the tools to store, share and make this data available as well as determining what additional data is required, how they are best collected and ensuring that the data and tools are available beyond the life of the CRC.

As a scoping study, the outcomes will guide future CRC projects by providing a comprehensive review of the relevance of reliable, easily measurable and practical soil health and function indicators and their ability to link soil measurements with yield, productivity and profitability.

Farmers often intuitively assess soil by smell. There is strong evidence that the fingerprint of gases emitted from soil can identify the composition and activity of the microbial community which relates to soil health. Currently there are no field based sensors to diagnose soil health using aromas. An ‘electronic nose’ offers a solution to this problem.

Work has begun on the prototype eNose and a range of sensors to show “proof of concept” of this technology. The eNose is being co-developed with farmers to ensure that the technology is useful, usable and provides relevant information which is easily interpreted and understood by farmers themselves. Being able to do this will mean that farmers can make the right management decisions to improve crop performance and yield, especially in poor soils. 

An objective diagnosis of soil health will assist farmers and other land managers in understanding which management practices and environmental events have positive or negative effects on soil microbial communities, as well as enabling the temporal monitoring of soil microbial health.

Currently, there are very few rapid and cost effective in-field techniques available to assess and monitor the health of soil microbial communities. The eNose will “smell” the soil (via gas sensors) and then translate this gas fingerprint into microbial health metrics. Microorganisms in the soil produce many chemicals including volatile organic carbons (VOCs). These are small carbon-based molecules that evaporate easily. Different types of microbes produce different VOCs that the eNose can detect and use to provide an indication of how the soil microorganisms are functioning. 

This project aims to build on expertise available through previous eNose research activities and build on existing sensor technologies. The project will have very close synergy with other Soil CRC research into determining the key microbial indicators of performance.

The soil eNose could be used as a stand-alone tool, complete with other soil (temperature, pH, and moisture) sensors, or integrated into more complex precision agriculture systems including components which are under development by the Soil CRC.

The prototype eNose is being built by an expert in eNose technology for measuring volatiles emitted during insect damage to crops. The prototype consists of a sensor array made from low cost, off-the-shelf components. Existing sensors used include: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrocarbons, ammonia, organic solvents, nitrogen dioxide, ethylene, and nitric oxide. They are exploiting the cross sensitivity of these sensors to create a signature of soil aromas. The tool will also include basic environmental monitoring capability (soil moisture, pH and temperature; air temperature and humidity).

The eNose will function biometrically i.e. in a similar way to how humans smell. Humans have learnt to associate certain aromas with certain items – although there is no ability to measure or identify the exact gases present.

The eNose design we propose mimics biochemical processes and the exact compounds emitted do not need to be identified. We aim to use the signature of these compounds as a proxy for health and function of the soil. Some of the sensors however will act in a traditional capacity, e.g. the eNose will have a carbon dioxide sensor (carbon dioxide flux is commonly used as a measure of soil respiration, it is known that high respiration rates are associated with healthy and productive soils).

An eNose will be located on a single farm for a “proof of concept” test that it can observe changes in gas emissions over time. Data will be analysed using the basic calibration data acquired in lab testing and related to basic response variables shown by the stress trials. The eNose prototype is currently being tested with some farmers, with more testing to come. 

The Visualising Australasia’s Soils (VAS) project aims to make Australasian soils data from all sectors visible and reusable, according to agreed governance principles, so that Soil CRC participants can maximise the value of their research.

VAS has two long-term objectives:

1. To make existing soils data more findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) to provide a range of benefits for research, on-farm decision making and policy development.
2. To integrate with other initiatives from the local to international scale that are aiming to liberate soils data and make it available according to the FAIR framework.

Phase 1 (this project) ran from 2019-2021 and saw the launch of the Visualising Australasia’s Soils (VAS) spatial data portal. The VAS portal provides an online place to discover and share soils information, activities and research from Australia and New Zealand.

Phase 1 collaborators included three universities, one government agency, 13 farmer groups, two Catchment Management Authorities and one industry partner.  Engaging with the project participants helped us understand their motivations for being involved in the project and their aspiring use-cases for the VAS system.

The design of the system architecture was based on the use-cases, resulting in a federated data supply model that includes a cloud-based data aggregator for the participant’s soil data.

Bringing together the data has been unexpectedly challenging because of the lack of metadata, immature data stewardship practices, poor data literacy of the participants, and the incongruency of the data. Harmonising and modelling the federated data into reliable products posed a significant challenge.

At the end of the first phase, the participants had provisioned 827 soil sites at which approximately 4384 samples were taken with about 77,332 soil observations. Some of the 1628 open public sector soil datasets available were publicly viewable in the VAS portal.

Phase 2 of the project (2021-2024) aims to create an independent and enduring soil research data federation of public and private sector data. Key objectives are motivating soil data custodians to make their data ‘Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable’ (FAIR) and aligning with other initiatives to maximise discovery and reuse.

The research will now continue under Phase 3 (2024-2027), which will focus on the system’s legacy and transforming VAS into an enduring Australasian soils knowledge system.

The goal of this project was to understand the reactions of phosphorous fertilisers in soils and the various chemical and biological processes involved in unlocking phosphorous so that crops can use it, thereby increasing the productivity of Australian agricultural soils.

Although phosphorous is present in significant quantities in many agricultural soils, a majority proportion exists in strongly adsorbed or insoluble inorganic forms, and therefore is not bioavailable to agricultural crops.

Most modern agriculture systems are heavily reliant on recurrent inputs of nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, calcium, magnesium and trace elements. These nutrients are derived primarily from synthetic fertilisers using nutrient rich mineral resources such as phosphate rock and elemental sulphur. With increasing costs of fertiliser production and decline in the supply of natural mineral resources, farmers face the challenge of ensuring crops have sufficient access to the nutrients they need to thrive.

*This project has additional funding provided by the NSW Government Department of Industry’s Research Attraction and Acceleration Program (RAAP).

This project identified the location, scope and impact of current research investigating soil constraints to agricultural production, and reviewed the major soil constraints to Australian agriculture and the amelioration products and technologies to manage these constraints.

This project produced a report based on an objective needs assessment using an economic framework for prioritisation that will be critical in deciding the future research directions for Program 3.

This scoping study consulted with end users to identify the key issues that are contributing to lower production due to soil constraints so that the future research of program 4 (with aspects informing Program 3, output 3) can be directed and targeted to deliver outcomes in these areas.

A key deliverable of this study is the establishment of formal engagement between researchers and growers in the identification and prioritisation of issues. The on-ground relationships this scoping study established are critical to the successful adoption of future Soil CRC outcomes.

A growing number of innovative farmers are attempting to restore or improve the performance of Australian soils using regenerative practices that are designed to build soil carbon. However, up until now, evidence of success has been largely anecdotal. This project will take a co-innovation approach, including researchers, farmers and extension practitioners to quantify the effectiveness of regenerative farming systems for improving soil performance across defined soil and climate constraints. Through a series of workshops, shared research needs will be defined and prioritised, and a collaborative research program will be developed and implemented to help farmers better understand how regenerative agriculture practices might be used in Australian agriculture.

Regenerative agriculture seeks to enhance synergetic relationships that build organic matter and increase soil carbon, using a range of practices including no-tillage, cover crops, crop rotations, intercropping, integrated livestock management, increased biodiversity and diversification, reduced inputs of synthetic fertilisers and biocides, addition of biological products such as compost, seaweed extracts, fish hydrolysates and vermicast. These practices are aimed at optimising soil carbon functionality, with the ultimate result being an increase in plant and animal performance.

The effects of individual practices have sometimes been studied in isolation, but regenerative farmers adopt a whole-system approach that has been mostly overlooked by research scientists. The lack of engagement between scientists and regenerative farmers is partly due to (i) the variety of practices are difficult to classify, (ii) the knowledge being context-specific and scattered amongst practitioners; (ii) regenerative management strategies (holistic) being viewed as too complex and time consuming to become mainstream.

This project will promote collaboration between scientists and regenerative farmers, in order to study carbon functionality in regenerative farming systems and quantify key farm performance outcomes.

At the core of the project is a co-innovation platform seeking to progress relationships between researchers, farmers and extension practitioners, from engagement to collaboration. This platform enables co-delivery of a research program focussed on characterising carbon functionality in regenerative farming systems. The program is investigating whether soil carbon functionality can be improved using regenerative farming practices (including extremely carbon poor soils), and whether regenerative farm management strategies do indeed increase farm performance across multiple key outcomes.

Soils often exhibit multiple constraints that limit their productivity. Historically, attempts to address these constraints have been conducted via research that addresses each constraint individually. Each problem has an industry “best practice” solution but when these are applied in combination to handle multiple constraints, the input costs and practicality of application often create barriers to adoption and the constraint remains.

The eradication of these limitations requires complex solutions rather than treating each constraint in isolation. An opportunity exists to introduce novel amelioration methods that seek to address multiple constraints with a single application.

This project will determine the mechanistic mode of action of novel soil re-engineering methods to fix complex soil constraints. It will facilitate increases in plant productivity and develop more resilient cropping systems.

The project findings will allow farmers to identify the upper limit of production from their soils and inform site and amendment selection for future field studies. Project data will be utilised by Soil CRC researchers to inform economic modelling and construction and refinement of decision support systems which in turn can inform farmers how to best manage their soil.

Collaborating grower groups will identify their priority soils, exhibiting multiple constraints to production, for inclusion in controlled environment studies conducted in glasshouse facilities. Small plot studies will also be conducted on selected soils.

Farmers face multiple, complex soil constraints that are difficult and costly to diagnose, assess and ameliorate.

Following on from the scoping study Soil models, tools and data: Current state of play, future directions and setting up for longevity and a legacy from the CRC for High Performance Soils, this project will address the issue that most Decision Support Systems (DSS) do not allow for complex soil constraints in their modelling.

Currently, the models and DSS used in Australian agriculture have a limited ability to represent a diversity of soil constraints and how these constraints interact to affect crop and pasture production. Essentially, only nitrogen fertility and soil water dynamics in dryland environments is well represented.

This project will improve already existing and widely used DSS (ARM Online, Yield Prophet and Soil Water App) through developing soil constraint modules to increase the reliability of predictions that can be used in the paddock.

Focusing on DSS with existing user bases will ensure early and rapid adoption and will provide enhanced decision support to the agricultural industry for addressing complex soil productivity and constraint challenges that limit farm productivity. Ultimately, this will help farmers and advisers to formulate interventions and new management strategies to improve productivity.

Incorporating developments into existing DSS will ensure that the project has a direct payoff to Australian farmers and will enable them to identify efficient strategies to address soil constraints to production for their specific circumstances. This represents a significant user base that will facilitate the early uptake of the projects outputs leading to rapid impacts.