Mount Alexander Sustainability Group’s Healthy Soils team is looking for commercial farmers with soil issues within a 50-60km radius from Castlemaine.

This Healthy Soils Project offers the opportunity for 20 participating farms to receive free soil constraint assessments and soil testing, as well as assistance with developing a soil health management and monitoring plan.

Participating farmers will also be invited to help road-test planning tools and information resources developed under the project.

The focus of the project is to provide farmers with practical ways to benchmark current soil health constraints and plan and monitor how their soil is responding to farm practices aimed at building and maintaining soil health and farm productivity.

Over the next two years, field days will be held on local farms already working to build and maintain healthy functioning soil. Dates and locations for field days in September will be announced shortly.

This project is funded by the federal government’s Smart Farms Small Grants: Soil Extension Activities program through Mount Alexander Sustainability Group and Federation University.

Bill Grant, Research Fellow at Federation University, will head the project, along with MASG’s newly appointed Healthy Soils project officer, Mikaela Beckley.

“We’re focusing on how farmers can cost-effectively benchmark their current soil constraints, plan practical and cost-effective ways to rectify these constraints, and then monitor changes in soil performance without the need for frequent laboratory testing of soils”, says Bill.

“Laboratory tests are useful and should be undertaken as needed, but there are fairly simple field and ‘kitchen table laboratory’ tests, as well as precision farming and nutrient management tools, that can help farmers monitor and manage their soil all year round.”

The aim is to have a diverse range of participating commercial farms within the region, including grazing, cropping, orchards, groves and vineyards, market gardens, ‘Conventional’, ‘Regenerative’, and ‘Organic’.

A small landowners network for those farming for some income on smaller, more ‘lifestyle’ properties will also be supported by the project.

If you are a farmer interested in obtaining more information, participating in the project, or attending the upcoming field days, please contact Bill Grant via email b.grant@federation.edu.au or phone 0407 882 070.

This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 2 September 2022.