SANTFA Projects: Progress & Review
- Moisture Monitoring
- Farmers Helping Farmers
- GRDC SAN 00013
One of the key goals of the new SANTFA website is to provide a better platform to display all of the work that SANTFA is involved with.
As time permits intend to get as much of this information into the website, where it will now be easily accessible by our Members.
Soil Moisture Monitoring Projects
SANTFA has won financial support for two new projects, one research and the other extension.
The research involves the use of new sub-surface soil moisture probes to evaluate soil water-holding capacity and infiltration rates in farming systems with and without stubble. The three-year project is being conducted in conjunction with the CSIRO and is partially supported by the GRDC and the Northern & Yorke NRM Board.
The advantage of the new sub-surface probes being used in this trial is that they are completely buried and can be sown over while they are in place. This eliminates the expense and trouble of removing them prior to planting and replacing them afterwards.
Three sites have been chosen for this research: a low-rainfall site at Buckleboo, a medium-rainfall location on central Yorke Peninsula and a high-rainfall site at Wirrabara. All three paddocks are part of long-term no-till and stubble retention systems without stock. Four probes have been placed in each of the paddocks and the stubble will be removed from plots above two of the probes.
Each of the sites also has an automated rain-gauge so rain events can be matched to soil moisture trends and the data is automatically transferred to an internet server via the mobile phone network.
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