Five simple soil indication steps to apply to your paddocks

Canberra soil advisory, Soils for Life, has joined forces with Local Land Services to assist producers in taking part in the Future Drought Fund.

This will include closer scrutiny of peoples' soils and ways to keep the soil in tip top shape for better production.

Soils for Life farmer engagement manager, James Diack, along with soil scientist, Dr Katherine Brown, have demonstrated five simple soil indication tests that producers can do on their own properties.

This included in-field observations of soil health, which Mr Diack said were easy things producers could do to track the health of their soil over time, Mr Diack said.

"We're doing these soil health observations with the 15 champions, the people that have received the funding to put the infrastructure on their properties, in the same location as a set of lab tests," he said.

"Those tests will create a baseline so that people can continue to do those in-depth tests if they want to, or they can relate to the in-field observations in an afternoon or half an afternoon's worth of your time."

The first step is a photo point, where producers can take a photo in the same point, with the same framing, with easiest way being with your phone for easy access and to be transferred onto a computer for reference against other seasons.

"So you can see how the pasture looks, how the trees look, how the landscape looks, how the dam looks," Mr Diack said.

The next step is to record the ground cover.

"Taking the photo helps you look at it with objective eyes, because we all know that once it starts raining, the eyes adjust to what the paddock looks like once you get deep into the drought, like everything's yellow, but you don't notice that everything's yellow 'cause your the frog in the frying pan," Mr Diack said

"But if you take the photo you can look back and over time you can go 'oh', you marry them with the photo of the landscape and the photo of the ground."

Infiltration was the next test, which is used to see how quickly the water flows into the soil in a certain amount of time.

Dr Katherine Brown, a soil scientist, Soils for Life, said a simple way to perform the test was with a piece of PVC pipe, or even a Milo tin.

"Just simply put a certain amount of water into the tin at different places on your property and see how quickly the water might disappear or not," Dr Brown said.

"That's a clear indication of a number of things. It could be what's happening on the surface of the soil, it could the dependent on your soil type, so clay versus sand.

"If you do measure it with a ruler and you measure it over six minutes, you multiply that by 10, you're getting millimetres per hour."

Aggregate stability was next on the agenda.

This can be monitored by taking a sample from the soil of both subsoil and topsoil, with pieces of soil being no bigger then a pea and placing them in water containers for a period of time.

Dr Brown said this method is measuring is the stability of the soils to disturbance triggers, such as rainfall and infiltration or cultivation.

"What we're looking to see is two types; either the soil collapsing, and that's called slaking, or we're looking for dispersion, which is tiny little clay particles leaking out and going milky," Dr Brown said.

Things that can promote aggregate stability is clay, or if there is no clay content in the soil, then organic matter.

The last test that can be performed on farm is a pH test.

This kind of test can be carried out by a pH test that can be found at a hardware store, but certainly doesn't take the place of a laboratory test.

"You can get a very quick indication of your soil pH across a paddock, farm, or down the soil profile, because it often changes and that's when we get into soil limitations to whatever you're trying the grow," Dr Brown said.

Mr Diark said the first step was to mush up the soil with an indicator, then apply the barium sulphate powder on top and mix it into a paste so the components that cause acidity in pH mix into the soil.