Capitalising on established field trials for ameliorating (sub)soil constraints

Long-term field trials are essential for understanding the effects of amelioration techniques on soil health and water use efficiency. Soil amendments need time to change soil properties, and responses may vary yearly due to climate variability.

This project builds on six long-term field trials established by three Soil CRC projects to capitalise on the investment in these sites and continue investigations for a further two cropping seasons.

The field experiments will now extend across four cropping seasons and are based in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. Four sites were part of Project 4.2.004, and two were from Project 3.3.003 and Project 4.1.002 on deep sandy soils.

By extending this research, the project will capture more climate variability and enable the economic analysis of outcomes for four cropping seasons.

The experiments explore recent advances in soil amelioration techniques to address the challenges of managing multiple soil constraints. They aim to improve our understanding of the interactions of these novel strategies with crop use of soil water in contrasting soil types and farming systems over varied seasons.

The experiments represent a close collaboration between the various research groups and farmer groups, ensuring that the treatments and measurements are relevant to the needs and interests of farmers in the local areas.

The outcomes of the project are expected to improve current methods to ameliorate subsoil constraints through development of new and more effective practices. This will enable more efficient use of soil water across a range of Australian farming systems.