Posts in Agriculture
Permaculture - a different kind of farming

Have you heard about permaculture?
Do you know what it is?
I will admit that when living in Griffith, NSW in the late 1980s - early ‘90s we converted the garden and lawn of our suburban block to a permaculture garden. It must have given the neighbours something different to talk about.

To help clear up any potential misunderstandings you have we are speaking with Lachlan Storrie, who runs a business around the lower Hunter Valley in NSW called Treefrog Permaculture.

Permaculture garden in foreground with ‘normal’ suburban block next door.



Lachlan proud of his bananas in Newcastle, NSW.

Wikipedia definition

Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principles in fields such as regenerative agriculture, town planning, rewilding, and community resilience. Permaculture originally came from "permanent agriculture" but was later adjusted to mean "permanent culture", incorporating social aspects. The term was coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, who formulated the concept in opposition to modern industrialized methods instead adopting a more traditional or "natural" approach to agriculture.


Permaculture is also good for wildlife.

Are you edible? Feathered dinosaur looking for food.

Coffee berries

Blueberries almost ready for picking

Greenhouse gas reduction down on the farm - what farmers are doing now - Part III

This is number 3 in the series on carbon and farming.
Farmers are out there now implementing strategies to reduce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides, while continuing to make a profit.

Simon Wallwork and Cindy Stevens jointly run their 3,700 ha mixed cropping-sheep-cattle property at Corrigin in the central cropping belt of WA. They have been frustrated by the lack of will of politicians and administrators to develop and implement meaningful policies to minimise the impacts of human-induced climate change on the agricultural sector and the planet in general.

So after their youngest son asked what they were going to do about it, they got together with other keen growers and formed AgZero2030. Simon and Cindy are respectively Chair and Secretary.

AgZero2030 is a movement of WA farmers eager to influence climate action and to lead by example by making their own properties carbon neutral within the decade. They hope to encourage other growers to start managing their greenhouse gas production by promoting positive actions taken by fellow growers.

Simon & Cindy Image: The Guardian

Simon & Cindy Image: The Guardian

In this podcast Simon and Cindy explain what got them into AgZero2030 and what they are implementing on their own farm to meet their decarbonisation goals and meet the requirements of changing markets.

Soil Carbon Part 2 - A soil scientist's viewpoint - Dr Fran Hoyle

In the previous podcast about soil carbon we heard from Peter McInerney from Wagga Wagga in New South Wales about practicing agronomist’s point of view on increasing soil carbon levels. Peter sees soil carbon as an important part of improving soils and therefore plant production.

There is no doubt about the benefits of soil carbon to soil health and agriculture. Loss of soil organic carbon means lower nutrients and water holding capacity and the soil becomes harder. It has been estimated that since Europeans colonised Australia we have lost up to 75% of total soil organic carbon. A sad state of affairs.

However there is a lot of talk about how we can take carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil and be paid for it. But just how easy is that going to be particularly for a grower in Western Australia?

In this podcast I’m speaking with Dr Fran Hoyle who’s had several decades as an agronomist and soil scientist and has put a lot of years into measuring and studying soil carbon and how it behaves under different situations.

Fran started as a wheat agronomist with the West Australian Department of agriculture (DAFWA), and had an increasing focus on soil quality and biological function. More recently she joined the University of Western Australia continuing work on management of soil organic carbon and as Director of SoilsWest.

In this Giving a RATS pod cast we get more detail about soil carbon and what we can realistically expect on how to build up our soil carbon levels.

Contact Fran - https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/frances-hoyle

 
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Further Reading

SoilsWest acts to identify and connect soil scientists and partnering organisations to a range of different skills, opportunities and capability for the delivery of more integrated soil research in Western Australia.
https://soilswest.org.au

Soil Quality website - Fact sheets and data portal www.soilquality.org.au

Soil organic matter eBook - https://books.apple.com/au/book/soil-quality-3-soil-organic-matter/id1444338744

Fran Hoyle

Fran Hoyle

Hoyle residence guard dog and podcast cameo appearance - Rosie Violet Hoyle

Hoyle residence guard dog and podcast cameo appearance - Rosie Violet Hoyle

 
Soil carbon Part 1 of 3 - an agronomist's viewpoint

Soil Carbon. Everyone is talking about it. But what is it? While I always knew there was more to soil carbon than meets the eye these days of a warming planet soil carbon has taken on a whole new meaning with lots of different possibilities.

What is the role of soil carbon in Australian farming systems?

We all know that soil carbon is important for soil health, but what do growers need to do to increase soil carbon levels?

From: How Much Carbon Can Soil Store?

From: How Much Carbon Can Soil Store?

Peter McInerney, 3-D Agriculture

Peter McInerney, 3-D Agriculture

Can farmers make additional income by increasing their soil carbon levels?

Here I discuss with Peter McInerney, a whole farm agronomist from 3-D Agriculture, how he goes about encouraging his clients to improve their soil carbon levels and the range of benefits that accrue from doing so.

To find Peter’s contact details and the range of services he and Hazel can provide go to
https://www.3d-ag.com.au/

 
 
Travels with Dr Wal Anderson
Wal visiting a souk in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Wal visiting a souk in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

‘Nightinggale’ milking mares to make the fermented Kazakh delicacy ‘coumis’.

‘Nightinggale’ milking mares to make the fermented Kazakh delicacy ‘coumis’.

In this interview Dr Wal Anderson shares some of his experiences working in overseas agricultural aid .

Wal was fortunate to work in Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Kazakstan and China.

He feels the greatest skill to possess when working overseas is to be able to listen to the local people to understand them and how you might best help improve their situation.

 
 
Vegetable field, Tibet.

Vegetable field, Tibet.

What is Tactical crop management and how can it lift yields?

In this interview I am speaking with Dr Wal Anderson, a stalwart of Australian crop agronomy, who has been a research agronomist for nearly sixty years. He has worked across Australia and had many stints working for various overseas entities such as the Food & Agriculture Organisation. He has written more than 70 papers published in peer-reviewed, scientific journals, ten invited chapters in books and numerous extension articles for popular press and rural journals. He has also been a mentor for many early career researchers.

Although he has been retired since 2010, like many dedicated scientists he has kept up an interest in agriculture and politics.

Here we discuss a recently published review paper “Tactical Crop Management for improved productivity in winter dominant rainfall regions: a review”. Crop & Pasture Science, 2020, 71, 621–644
https://doi.org/10.1071/CP19315

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