ResearchAgriculture

Techniques for soil improvement and mapping adding to South Australian farmers' armoury

Techniques for soil improvement and mapping adding to South Australian farmers' armoury
New Horizons is another initiative in improving soil for South Australian farms.
Image courtesy South Australian department of environment, water and natural resources

New Horizons is a Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA) initiative to boost the productivity of broadacre crop and livestock pasture on South Australia's poorly performing soils.

This aimed to deal with compacted, low nutrient and low water-holding soils.

The New Horizons trials have confirmed sandy soils can be greatly improved by adding clay, organic matter and nutrients at different depths at three sites across South Australia. The results showed increases in grain yield between an average 70-200% at all three trial sites (at Brimpton Lake on Eyre Peninsula, Karoonda in the Murray Mallee, and Cadgee in the South East).

Soils can be dramatically improved and crop production increased through managing the top 50cm of soil, rather than the traditional top 10cm.

South Australian farmers also can improve soil health and increase crop and pasture productivity with new mapping developed by the state government.
Farmers can measure and map the variability of pH across paddocks using mapping. More than 1.9 million hectares of agricultural land in South Australia is susceptible to damage from soil acidification. Treating it with lime is the most effective way to improve soil pH. Pulled by a tractor or ute, a pH mapping machine takes 12 readings per hectare, automatically collecting soil samples, measuring the pH of each sample and recording its geographic position.

From this data, pH maps are produced and liming recommendations calculated for each zone, so farmers can accurately apply lime at the required rates. This improves soil and increases crop and pasture output while cutting costs by 25-30% or more.

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