Michelle Priest from GeoCatch presented a light-hearted yet informative ‘DIY Soil Testing” session to farmers at the South West NRM Pasture Challenge final results event.
Michelle was interviewed by Rick Shaw (AKA Peter Clifton, South West NRM’s Sustainable Agriculture Manager) who somehow managed to ask all the wrong questions, to which Michelle gave all the right answers. This fun look at DIY on-farm soil testing demonstrated there are some basic procedures to follow and it can be done by farmers with a few simple tools.
Michelle reiterated the key components to getting a good representative soil test across your paddocks.
“Make sure you sample to a depth of 10cm, with a minimum of 30 sample points across a paddock. Avoid high-nutrient or hazardous areas like stock camps, gates or water troughs which might skew the results, you’re looking at getting the best soil representation of the paddock. And it’s is important to keep your samples cool and send them to the lab early in the week.”
The Geographe Soil Testing Program aims to support farmers in making informed fertiliser decisions to ensure nutrients stay on the farm and out of waterways and estuaries.
Soil testing has given hundreds of Geographe farmers the confidence to target their fertiliser applications and work towards improving farm productivity, cut unnecessary fertiliser inputs as well as reducing excess entering waterways.
If you would like to know more about on-farm soil testing in the Geographe Catchment, visit https://geocatch.asn.au/soil-testing/ . For more information on the pasture challenge, visit https://southwestnrm.org.au/project/pasture-challenge/
