Soil CRC Delegates Explore Sandy Soils in the West Midlands
By Kate Parker & Simon Kruger, WMG
Following the national Soil CRC conference in Perth, researchers and PhD students travelled north on 28 August for a field trip through the West Midlands region. Coordinated with the West Midlands Group (WMG), the tour highlighted the area’s characteristic sandy soils and ongoing research partnerships between growers, industry, and scientists.
Digging into Local Soils at Velyere
The first stop was the N-Banking trial site and soil pit at Velyere Farm, Dandaragan. Discussions were led by Bindi Isbister (DPIRD/Agrarian Management) alongside farm representative Arie Madlener. The site is exploring how different nitrogen application strategies perform under local conditions, with treatments ranging from grower practice through to nitrogen banking and yield-potential approaches
Key themes included:
- Compaction and water repellence, managed through deep ripping and spading, often timed in summer to maximise response.
- Soil acidity and liming, with pH shifts being tracked through seeding and ripping trials. Bindi showed the difference “on vs off the line” in pH, root growth, and crop establishment.
- Nutrient dynamics under high rainfall, where leaching drives the need for split applications of nitrogen, although operational logistics often dictate timing more than strategy. Variable rate technology could improve efficiency, but cost and capacity remain barriers.
- Emerging nutrient issues, with manganese deficiency expected to become more common as liming lifts surface pH.
- Future opportunities, such as post-emergent ripping, though timing and integration with lime incorporation remain open questions.
The soil pit gave delegates a practical view of how soil layers, acidity, and root development interact with management choices
Wathingarra Stacking Amendments Trial
The group then travelled to the Wathingarra long-term trial site in Badgingarra, supported by the Soil CRC through funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund. Here, WMG and Murdoch University are trialling stacking combinations of soil amelioration and organic amendments on deep red sands with severe water repellence
The experiment, established in 2021, combines deep tillage (mouldboard ploughing, rotary spading, shallow tillage) with organic amendments (compost, frass, biochar, zeolite, gypsum, clay, Ironman gypsum). WMG is following a subset of 18 treatments in detail.
Findings to date show:
- Amelioration treatments consistently outperform untreated controls.
- Compost has provided strong early benefits, though its effects fade without reapplication.
- Frass and biochar showed little impact when first applied, but by 2024 had increased serradella biomass by up to 58% and boosted nutrient uptake.
- Outcomes are strongly rainfall-dependent, with wet years delivering the greatest returns.
- Mouldboard treatments are increasing carbon in the 10–30 cm profile, while surface-applied frass and biochar have raised carbon in the top 10 cm.
- Two years of serradella have already lifted organic carbon levels above baseline testing done in 2022
Linking Research with Regional Context
For many delegates, the field trip offered an important opportunity to connect their research focus with the practical realities of farming in sandy soils. Conversations at the Velyere soil pit and the long-term dataset emerging from Wathingarra showed how collaborative approaches between farmers, grower groups, and researchers can bridge scientific innovation and applied outcomes.
The tour concluded with discussions on how learnings from the West Midlands region could inform broader Soil CRC research efforts across Australia before a stop in New Norcia and back to Perth.
