The Mulloon Institute’s Luke Peel and Joe Skuse hosted year 12 Agriculture students from The Scots College over two days with a focus on soils and the Mulloon Rehydration Initiative. 

The students were given an insight into the property and catchment scale operations undertaken by TMI that help reinstate nature’s way of managing water in the landscape, and the principles of managing the land to improve soil and plant growth. The students were taught how to assess a range of soil profiles for physical and chemical characteristics, and understand what makes a good soil that acts like a sponge to infiltrate and retain water for plant growth. Additionally, they learnt about the importance of soil microbes for nutrient cycling and their symbiotic relationship with plants. The students were also treated to an informal lecture by expert regenerative farmer, Martin Royds from Braidwood, and a tour of his Jillamatong property. 

As a graduate of TSC, landscape planner Joe Skuse was able to give an insight into his journey from studying at the college, then his Bachelor of Environment Sustainability from ANU, which has provided a career pathway to TMI.

Thanks to The Scots College’s Coordinators Kym and Duncan McMaster, and teacher Daisie Thomas for their continued interest and support to bring students to Mulloon Creek Natural Farms. Education and training for the next generation of farmers, agronomists, and land managers is paramount to Australia’s food fibre and environmental future. Thanks also to our major partners, ANU for the use of their soil sampling equipment.

The Mulloon Rehydration Initiative is jointly funded through the Mulloon Institute and the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program. The initiative is also assisted by the NSW Government through its Environmental Trust.

excerpts from The Land, 13 February 2021

Despite being a decorated career soldier and later Governor-General of Australia, Michael Jeffery probably made his biggest mark as a fierce advocate for improving and protecting our fragile soils.

His commitment to the Australian landscape was acknowledged on World Soil Day (5 December 2020) when the General Jeffrey Soil Health Award was launched.

The award will be presented to any individual farmer, land manager, extension specialist or educator who is making an exceptional contribution to soil health in Australia.

The award is supported by the Office of the National Soils Advocate within the Australian Government Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Read the full story: https://www.theland.com.au/story/7120508/public-duty-first-self-second/

The recent passing of our Patron, Michael Jeffery, is a great loss to the nation. General Jeffery’s service to Australia has been outstanding including a very distinguished military career followed by his service to Western Australia as Governor and then to the nation as Governor General.

Following his time as Governor General, General Jeffery continued to ‘serve’ via his involvement with many organisations some being the Royal Flying Doctor Service and his Outcomes Australia that promoted organ donating, addressed obesity and included the Think Tank, Future Directions International and his beloved Soils for Life.

I was privileged to have a Governor General/Minister relationship with Michael Jeffery during my time in the Australian Parliament and then while chairing a subcommittee of Soils for Life. I was delighted when he agreed to become the Patron of The Mulloon Institute and he has been an inspiration to me, the Board and our employees over the past few years.

General Jeffery leaves wonderful legacies with many organisations and none more so than those of us that shared his passion for healthy soils. He very much understood the role of soil, water, plants and animals in repairing and rebuilding our landscapes and their role in regenerative agriculture. The Federal Government also acknowledged his leadership in this area when they appointed him Australia’s National Soil Advocate and more recently instigating the Healthy Soil Award in his name.

Michael Jeffery will be greatly missed by many Australians. We at The Mulloon Institute send our condolences and warm regards to his wife, Marlena, and his family at this sad time. We have lost a great Australian, but we will be inspired by the legacies he leaves.

Regards,
Gary Nairn AO
The Mulloon Institute – Chairman

Earlier this year at the height of the drought, the health and well-being of our pasture-raised, free range chickens at Mulloon Creek Natural Farms risked being compromised due to the increasingly poor quality of potable water available to our chickens. 

With the health of our chickens always being our number one priority, a large number of younger birds were vaccinated to ensure their health was not put in jeopardy. It has since come to light that that vaccine falls outside the regulator’s organic certification standards. We immediately contacted the regulator seeking their advice and they have now informed us that we will not be able to market our eggs as ‘organically certified’ for the period until all the birds are sold, which will likely take up to 16 months.  

This does not impact our biodynamic pastures or the way we produce our eggs,  just our ability to market our eggs as ‘certified organic’. Any questions please contact our Mulloon Creek Natural Farms’ General Manager Jim Steele.

The latest news from Mulloon: https://conta.cc/378lu7H

The Mulloon Institute held its Annual General Meeting in November 2020 at the Barn on Mulloon Creek Natural Farms, with a decent turn out considering the restrictions due to COVID-19.

It was great to do something face-to-face again and it gave us the opportunity to connect with many of our members and supporters.

We also took the chance to extend our thanks to long-serving Director, Richard Allsopp.

Richard, being the nephew of our Founder, Tony Coote, has been involved with TMI from the very beginning. His work on the Board and with our farms, and his network of sourcing equipment and vehicles, has been of particular benefit to us. Richard will remain a key adviser to our ongoing work.

With one Richard moving off the Board, we welcomed a new one, Richard Forbes who has worked in Federal Government and in senior corporate affairs and communication roles across a range of industry sectors. He has extensive regional, national and international business experience. He has worked across four continents and has, domestically, spent over twenty years supporting rural and regional Australia. A former farmer in SA and NSW Richard is passionate about supporting the agricultural sector. He was the presenter of the well-known ABC Country Hour program, Head of Media at the CSIRO and worked as an Adviser and Press Secretary to former Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister, Mark Vaile.

We also proudly presented the Mulloon Institute’s 2020 Annual Report, in what has been a most challenging and exceedingly dynamic year.

TMI 2020 Annual Report

Research Coordinator Luke Peel and Science Officer James Diack from the Mulloon Institute hosted members and friends of the Wollondilly CWA Group on the Southern Highlands, which extends from Ulladulla to Kiama, and from Bundanoon to Mittagong. 

The day began with a COVID-safe morning tea in the Barn prepared by the CWA ladies (thanks Bec Hogan, Pat Hughes and Aliki Darlow!) , followed by a brief presentation and then relocating to the field tour at Peter’s Pond. 

The group were keen to see how leaky weirs have regenerated the system to maintain water levels and flow of the creek. This work has enabled more and diverse riparian and aquatic vegetation to flourish, creating habitat and food for local fauna, reduce evaporation, and filter and oxygenate the water. 

Discussion highlighted how the creek and adjacent floodplains interact, particularly following the recent flood in August where a large amount of silt and organic matter was deposited and the floodplain soils were fully recharged. The group heard how this floodplain rehydration will significantly boost the regeneration of the soils and pasture productivity, plus provide groundwater recharge that will continue to keep the creek topped up. 

The group were very interested, with a wide range of questions about; the rehydration works, how to work with nature to increase production, land management techniques, soil management including the importance of microbes. A big question was around how to manage weeds. Participants learnt that these pioneer plants (weeds) actually provide a feedback loop that suggests that ‘this ground under repair’. The weeds are in fact helping to manage whatever factor is causing the plants to be present, such as compaction, bare ground, overgrazing, etc. Once the weeds have done their repair work, the land is then able to transition to a more preferred plant species composition.

The next site the group visited was the Step Diffusion site situated on sloping country, which demonstrates how an eroding gully system can be rehydrated and regenerated to increase productivity and environmental outcomes. This site has been transformed by placing leaky contours at strategic locations based on reading the landscape, to slow the flow of water, spread the water laterally to infiltrate and rehydrate the whole system downslope. Too much surface water runoff can cause erosion, loss of infrastructure, plus loss of nutrients and organic material. Water that has infiltrated into the soil moves more slowly downslope through gravity, and promotes plant growth and soil microbe activity. The water does eventually make it to the series of farm dams below, and when it arrives it is filtered clean and provides quality water for use without adding sediment to the dam. Now that their habitat has been regenerated, frogs and birds have quickly moved back into the area, and more diversity of plants have emerged. 

Lunch was held in the Barn while two of TMI’s educational and inspirational videos were screened, followed by a presentation by Luke Peel covering many aspects of the Institute’s work on the catchment-scale Mulloon Rehydration Initiative. This was followed by Question and Answer session with many excellent questions and with James and Luke providing examples and knowledge for them to consider. 

Hopefully participants are now further inspired to consider implementing some of the practical steps towards rehydrating and regenerating on their own properties, which will help build resilience for future climate extremes, even if they only start on a small scale.

A big thanks to Bec Hogan who organised the group tour and for her patience with the original event being postponed twice due to bushfires and then COVID restrictions. 

To thank the group for trying for the third time to attend, four boxes of super jumbo eggs (480 eggs in total) from TMI’s certified organic, biodynamic, pasture-raised, free-range eggs from Mulloon Creek Natural Farms were offered as a gift, and all eggs were happily shared amongst the group.

The Mulloon Rehydration Initiative is jointly funded through the Mulloon Institute and the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program. The initiative is also assisted by the NSW Government through its Environmental Trust.

The Mulloon Institute hosted the annual ANU Environmental Science Field School at Mulloon Creek in September which was organised by Dr David Freudenberger with assistance from Dr Helen King, Dr Richard Thackway, Mauro Davanzo and others. TMI’s Research Coordinator Luke Peel helped to facilitate proceedings onsite at Mulloon.

Unfortunately, the field school was reduced from the usual three days of fieldwork to one due to COVID-19 restrictions on transporting large student groups, with many students driving their own vehicles to Mulloon. 

Students were able to use their recently acquired skills in conducting Landscape Function Analysis (LFA) on existing brush packs installed by the class of 2018. The data students collected is part of an ongoing assessment of how brush packs can be used to regenerate degraded land and assess the level of success. They also used this assessment of past works to provide ideas of what worked and if possible, what could be done better. 

The students selected a new area which happened to be further downslope of 2018 brush packs, where rills had developed and small scald areas due to animal pathways to the nearby water point and long term issues with runoff from upslope. 

The brush packs will slow water runoff (de-energised water), help trap soil, seeds and nutrients from upslope which will encourage more water infiltration, reducing the amount of runoff down the next slope step in the landscape, that would further erode the existing rills.

Brush packs were used to cover the rills to protect the soil from rain-splash impact and reduce animal traffic to help the eroded areas repair. The brush packs were almost a metre high, and will drop their leaves adding organic matter to the soil surface and helps trap water, soil and nutrients including seeds. The brush pack allows plants to germinate and grow to maturity as they are protected from grazing animals who prefer not to get poked in the face by the brush.

It’s always good to have ANU students visit Mulloon to apply their scientific skills and see how this relates to practical land rehydration and regeneration techniques that help farmers and land managers repair country. 

The Mulloon Rehydration Initiative is jointly funded through the Mulloon Institute and the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program and is supported by various affiliates.

Student reflections

“Luke Peel was adamant that for meaningful, long-term landscape restoration to occur, land managers needed to change their outlook on land management, to see a landscape as it has been and as it could be. This really highlighted to me the critical importance of effective science communication in creating meaningful change.”

“Regenerative agriculture seems like a new way to manage the landscape holistically.”

“I wondered how, at home we might be able to implement some of the techniques being used at Mulloon to protect our soils from erosion and compaction when we return livestock to the paddocks.”

“Initially, my opinion towards conservation was that agricultural land should be ignored or revegetated to become forest. I felt very cynical of the concept of environmentally-friendly agriculture. Coming out of this course, I’ve recognised the importance of working with what has been done and seen that there is true merit in teaching more eco-friendly farming values to landholders.”

“Listening to Luke Peel and have him impart his knowledge and experience on us served to illustrate that policy is not the be all and end all in land management. The idea that farms could work together within a region and increase their land functionality and therefore productivity was not something I had considered before, as so much of my background had centred around policy being the one and only thing that allows for change.”

“Learning about this institute [Mulloon] inspired me to look into studying further into sustainable agriculture as I believe it is the way of the future. I have started looking into sustainable agriculture master’s degrees where I can mix my skills that I have learnt in my undergraduate degree with new skills within the sustainable agriculture field.”

We’re thrilled to announce that the Mulloon Institute were winners at the 2020 National Heritage Trust (NSW) Awards, in the ‘Landscape Conservation’ category and the President’s Award, for our ‘Mulloon Rehydration Initiative – Stage 1’.