A new machine designed and exhaustively tested at a field-scale over 15 years and 32 sites in Western Australia, Queensland and Pakistan has been shown to increase crop yields by 25 per cent, on average (range 10 to 40 per cent).

This machine had its origin in raised bed research, where it was found that ripping, adding gypsum and employing no-tillage crop establishment did not prevent re-consolidation of beds and the loss of their ability to drain quickly and prevent waterlogging.

This illustrated the need for a machine that loosens compact subsoils, in a way that preserves post-ripping looseness as well as the enlarged root systems that grow in freshly ripped soils.

The Seedbed Conditioner machine was thus designed and tested.  It is used after ripping to about 30 cm depth.  It slices through soil and roots at depths between 20 to 30 cm, and its action lifts, opens and drops soil and root systems with zero soil inversion and exposure of plant roots and soil biology.

The machine has been shown to maintain a deeper, loose seedbed plus the organic matter of enlarged root systems and enlarged soil biology populations, and so increases the fertility and productivity of soils.

The ability of the Seedbed Conditioner machine to increase the fertility of deepened seedbed means its use will benefit all soils and all broad-acre cropping, both dryland and irrigated.

Further articles will present information on the soil and water improvements that the Seedbed Conditioner machine produces and so justify the claims that the use of a Seedbed Conditioner machine will improve the productivity of all soils without adding to the number and cost of cropping operations.

The Seedbed Conditioner is featured in the ARR.News Store.
Sales inquiries: Greg Hamilton 0481 764 070.

The next articles in the Seedbed Conditioner series will include:

• Practicalities, ease and economies of using the Seedbed Conditioner machines;
• Increased drought and waterlogging resilience of Seedbed Conditioning;
• Increases in soil carbon and gaining soil Carbon Credit Units/ income;
• Large increases in root growth and soil biology populations;
• Increases in soil nitrogen and reduction in application of nitrogenous fertilisers;
• Sustainability/ soil health of Seedbed Conditioning – increased fertility and prevention of soil-borne diseases;
• Substantial reductions in irrigation water use and application times (ie labour).

Australian Rural & Regional News is pleased to publish this series of articles sponsored by Greg Hamilton, the inventor of the Seedbed Conditioner and founder of Maximum Soil & Water Productivity Pty Ltd.