Building farming systems resilience and future proofing the impacts of drought through accelerating the adoption of proven cost-effective and yield responsive soil and fertiliser management practices by farmers across southern Australia

Farmers are keen to:

– grow a higher value break crop than current medic pastures

– improve cover and production on sandhills

– provide a good disease/nutrition benefit to the following crop

– currently lentils at 0.3-0.4t/ha still return more than wheat

– field peas are risky on these soil types too, vetch provides a good break but has a low return

– some are growing lentils in the rest of the paddock, but leaving out the problem sandy soils, creating issues with management

– improve overall paddock profitability and make the system work as a whole

Series of 3 workshops/crop walks per group.

3 groups on EP, target 10-15 participants per group.

Elders staff to coordinate the groups, facilitate the sessions, organise catering and venues.

Facilitation training offered as part of the project, delivered by Beck Burgess, Burgess Consulting.

Target group areas linked with focus paddocks at:

1. Lock (a paddock that was ripped in 2023 and sown to barley. Lentils and lupins sown 2024)

2. Wirrulla (a dry saline ‘magnesia patch’ with different mulches applied in strips in early 2024 – sand , sheep yard trash and straw, lentils sown 2024)

3. Wudinna (1 ha Ripped early/mid March 2024, 50-60 cm deep with 45 cm row spacing, lentils sown 2024)

To be done on targeted soils by people interested in participating in the workshops, facilitated by Elders staff.

3 tests funded by the project x 10 people per group.

Resources: (90 soil tests overall to be funded by the project).

Workshop Session 1: Identifying soil constraints to growing break crops and options for amelioration (2-3 hours)

Speaker: Dr Mel Fraser. w/c 11 March.

Timing: w/c 11 March

Workshop Session 2: Interpreting soil test results and deciding appropriate actions, paddock walk to focus sites (2-3 hours)

Speaker: Dr Sean Mason

Timing: 9-10 July

Workshop Session 3: Review of the season and outcomes, review of gross margins, ground cover (1-2 hours)

Debrief, what worked well, what didn’t. Where to from here?

Timing: post-harvest, December 2024/early 2025 TBC

 

Key take-home messages from the field demonstrations and extension activities

1. Soil Constraints and Lentil Production
• Lentils struggle in saline soils and benefit from precise sowing methods like on-row sowing.
• Deep ripping significantly improves pulse crop returns compared to cereals.
• Fertiliser placement is critical; MAP (lower salt index) is better for lentils on flats, while DAP suits cereals on sandhills.

2. Amelioration Techniques
• Deep ripping enhances soil structure but raises concerns about reduced ground cover and erosion.
• Spading and delving improve clay distribution and long-term productivity.

3. Nutrition and Testing
• Lentils require phosphorus (P) but no nitrogen (N). Tissue testing is essential for identifying nutrient deficiencies.
• Salinity tolerance varies by crop (for example, barley > wheat > lentils).

4. Agronomic and soil management
• Salinity significantly limits lentil establishment; management strategies like straw mulching improve results.
• On-row sowing increases germination rates due to better moisture retention and reduced salinity effects.
• Sequential crop selection post-amelioration (for example, cereals for soil cover, pulses for economic return) is essential.

Evaluation and Feedback
• Farmers reported gaining valuable insights into soil management and lentil production.
• Peer-to-peer knowledge sharing was evident, and participants expressed interest in adopting new practices.
• Engaging with agribusiness (such as Elders) to coordinate the groups was valuable. It brought in a cohort of farmers who may not have normally been involved in such group extension activities.
• Drought conditions impacted on the project. The late rainfall affected germination and biomass production.

Future opportunities
• Long-term (5-year) projects are necessary for sustained practice changes.
• Improved tools for mapping and VRT integration are required.
• There is a range of innovative tools for mapping complex soil types within paddocks (constrained flats, profitable loams/mid slopes, sands). Therefore, a training opportunity for agronomists and growers to show them how to use these tools (even if it’s just the ability to zone a paddock for monitoring purposes) would be a worthwhile initiative.

Conclusions
• This project emphasised the value of targeted soil management practices to improve the performance of producing lentils on sandy soils.
• The opportunity to transform sandy soils from challenging, often low-producing assets into highly productive soils was demonstrated, and this will provide further incentives for farmers to better manage such soil types.
• Through workshops, field trials, and collaborative efforts with agronomists, outcomes from the project will help foster sustainable practices and enhance regional agricultural resilience