Western Australia - Spring update
Northampton property escarpment slope
Soil Health Masterclass workshop
Lance Mudgway, Landscape Planner and local Mulloon representative in Western Australia, recently presented a ‘Landscape Rehydration’ introductory workshop at a Soil Systems Masterclass in Northampton, hosted by the Department of Primary Industry and Regional Development.
Northampton is about 470 km north of Perth and 15 km inland from the coast with a fascinating landscape – mesas on the edge of a sandy plateau, with an escarpment and gullies dropping off the edge and rolling hills to the coast.
The workshop is the first in a series of planned masterclasses to offer farmers on-farm workshops about the science underpinning sustainable, low-carbon, biological farming systems; and how to create and keep soil carbon. It forms part of the McGowan Government's $15 million Agriculture Climate Resilience Fund to assist farmers to respond to the challenges, and embrace the opportunities, of climate change.
Presenters included Brendon Savage, a Wheatbelt farmer from Kulin (280 km east south east of Perth) who has been putting on drastically less nitrogen on his crops after pasture (<10 units of N, versus district average of 40-80 units), with yields of 3.75 t/ha and crops being grazed in their early stages (district average would be 2-4 t/ha). Another presenter was an agronomist from Elders who was not following the conventional line.
The other main presenters were Ellen and Georgina from EarthWhile Australia who introduced soil biology. Participants were encouraged to bring in soil samples from their farms to view their soil biology.
“Transformation will come from embracing farming systems that see stronger soil biology, vegetative cover in our paddocks intensified, soil carbon growing significantly and landscapes being rehydrated.”
- WA Agriculture & Food Minister, Alannah MacTiernan
Northampton property escarpment slope – workshop site.
WA Stewardship Grant
Lance has visited several properties for site assessments as part of the Landscape Rehydration Trial and Demonstration project being conducted in the WA Wheatbelt, thanks to a WA Community Stewardship Grant.
Stuart McAlpine practices regenerative agriculture at his property and maintains cover over his soil and is trying to increase his soil carbon and biology. At the moment he is mainly cropping, but is hoping to swing back toward grazing (cattle). Stuart’s property has some exciting prospects for landscape rehydration work that could be done there. The area we are looking at is about 2000 ha and is the upper part of a large catchment, with salinised valley floors. Soils are sandy with gravelly ridges, on gently rolling hills and valleys. Waterlogging is prevalent along the edges of the valley floors. Salinity varies from mild to severe In the valley floors themselves, depending on elevation relative to the waterway. Gully water erosion is not a significant or a high risk, though sheet water erosion and wind erosion are.
McAlpine valley floor and adjacent slope.
Dave McFall’s organic property where he has used Yoeman’s key-line principles to manage water across the property very effectively, resulting in far less waterlogging issues compared to neighbouring farms.
Bev, Geoff and Jeremy Kowald have recently purchased the neighbouring property after leasing it for three years and would like to implement landscape rehydration on it. They practice holistic grazing and have been working to build their soil carbon and biology and are about to embark on building a composting facility, taking manure and feed residue from the local abattoir. These properties have the scope to become one site, with the potential for some good trials of the landscape rehydration methods in the WA Wheatbelt/cropping context.