Soil Quality

Articles

Monitor to yield a better future

Author
Dr Daniel Murphy, The University of Western Australia
Dr Frances Hoyle, Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia
Published
04 March 2007

KEY MESSAGES

We are implementing a soil quality monitoring program with 14 grower groups
Initial workshops provide background information relating to soil quality issues
Soil analysis identifies key biological, chemical and physical issues for a region
Subsequent workshops provide regionally specific soil quality data back to landholders
soilquality.org.au is a new interactive web site supporting these activities

AIM

Monitoring through time provides land holders with a means of illustrating positive outcomes from their stewardship. Our goal is therefore to promote the adoption of soil quality monitoring through improved education and hands-on support. However, for soil quality indicators to be adopted by the farming community there needs to be some general understanding by individuals of the soil attribute being measured and its importance to soil fertility. Therefore in our current extension programme we provide introductory soil health workshops that are tailored to the knowledge gaps of the catchment/grower groups that we work with. A second workshop is then conducted whereby land holders that have participated in the soil quality monitoring program obtain feedback on their individual soil analyses. This is supported by the associated interactive web site soilquality.org.au.

METHODS

A number of the soil quality programs implemented throughout the world have been established as a result of government initiative. These soil quality packages are often designed to provide information to policy and decision makers in an attempt to manage the soil as a national resource. Often the interest is at a rather coarse scale in terms of land use evaluation (e.g. is the land in question suited to forestry or agricultural production). In Western Australia we are more concerned with changes in the status of the soil due to altered agricultural management practices.

At present the farming community is faced with the difficulty of maintaining profit with increasing production costs and declining soil fertility. To address this problem agribusiness, research organisations and farmer-based groups have proposed numerous ‘sustainable’ management options to maintain soil fertility. To complement decision making processes with regards to best management practices for now (production goals) and into the future (sustainability issues) we have develop a package of soil quality indicators capable of distinguishing between various management induced changes in soil fertility. The emphasis for soil quality indicators in our research has thus been to firstly identify factors that limit a soil’s capacity to enhance plant production for increased grain production and secondly to ensure through monitoring, that changes to management practices designed to increase grain yield do not cause a longer-term detrimental effect on the sustainability of production systems.

In response to the current drivers for soil quality assessment in Western Australian our package of soil quality indicators has been designed to:

Measure differences between management practices not only major land use classifications.
Examine soils where alternative land uses or solutions exist.
Encompass aspects of soil biological, chemical and physical fertility.
Focus on soil organic matter – as this is a component of the system that can be influenced and that has a major impact on ecosystem processes.
Be inexpensive for routine analysis.
Have low equipment costs or to use equipment already available.
Require no specialist expertise to obtain measurements.
Be quantitative not qualitative.

CONCLUSION

Due to the unusual and sometimes unique properties of the ancient and infertile soils of Western Australia we cannot simply adopt indicator recommendations that were developed for quite different soil environments. For this reason we have developed a package of biological, chemical and physical indicators of soil quality specific to Western Australian soil conditions.

Acknowledgements

The initial screening of soil measurements as potential indicators was funded through the GRDC with research conducted at The University of Western Australia in collaboration with Dr Nui Milton and Professor Lyn Abbott. The current monitoring and education program is funded through the Avon Catchment Council with investment from the Western Australian and Australian Governments through the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, the Healthy Soils for Sustainable Farms programme which is managed by Land and Water Australia in partnership with the GRDC and through SCRIPT. Projects are delivered through The University of Western Australia on behalf of Agricultural Research Western Australia. Collaborating organisations include The University of Western Australia, Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia (with nodes in Geraldton, Northam, Albany and Esperance), Planfarm, Precision SoilTech, Australian Soil Monitoring Services, Local Farmer Group Network and the Grower Group Alliance. We are also grateful to the numerous individuals that have provided their time and enthusiasm into this program.

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