By TANIA PHILLIPS
GRANITE Belt farmers are being given the opportunity to find out more about their most valuable resource – soil.
Condamine Alliance’s upcoming Inside Soil workshops are the latest series to address soil health and farm practices.
“The workshops are an important contribution to ensuring Sustainable Agriculture practices across the Condamine catchment”, Condamine Alliance General Manager, Andrew McCartney said.
Presented by agronomist David Hall, the workshops combine informative and practical elements that look deeper into soil needs, in particular organic and inorganic amendments.
“Organic by-products have been used for centuries to support agricultural productivity but with limited validation of their long term effects and comparisons against other methods”, Mr Hall said.
The workshops are being run in conjunction with the Yaralla field trial in Pittsworth.
“Recent acquisition of a field that has previously been farmed commercially without any organic amendments applied has created an opportunity to monitor and evaluate broad acre commercial organic programs against inorganic programs and combinations of both”, Mr Hall said.
“The trial will monitor growth, soil, yield and seasons”.
“It is hoped that the results from this trial will assist with helping farmers and agricultural advisors better understand the benefits of utilising existing natural resources for soil health”.
Workshop participants will explore the value of these by-products, along with issues of soil health, soil security and correct soil analysis in the upcoming sessions.
Inside Soil is being run in Pittsworth, Warwick, Millmerran, Dalby and Chinchilla from 26 March to 3 April.
For more information on the Inside Soil workshop series contact Leanne Griffin on 0407 360 897.
