A DESIRE to look outside the square to deal with soil acidity will lead Great Southern farmer Johanna Tomlinson on a global tour of agriculture next year.
While Johanna has always had an interest in natural resource management, it was the purchase of a new property at Kalgan three years ago that was the catalyst to take on a world soil acidity tour through a Nuffield scholarship sponsored by CBH Group.
“My husband Wayne and I bought this property three years ago and we had the whole farm mapped through the Regional Estuaries Initiative Project,” Johanna said.
“We knew it had a significant soil acidity issue but that project showed us that we had a wall-to-wall acidity problem.
“The pH was sitting at 4.5 and given we wanted to run a pasture-based system we knew we had to deal with that.”
Johanna fell into agriculture, never thinking growing up in Perth that she would end up farming as a career.
Upon leaving school she studied environmental science at Murdoch University with a view to gaining a job in the mining industry but through this period Johanna met Wayne, who was farming at Bremer Bay and the rest is history as they say.
“Once I finished that degree I accepted a role with the Oyster Harbour Catchment Group as a project officer and from there I joined South Coast Natural Resource Management managing one of their projects from Jerramungup,” she said.
“This gave me exposure to a lot of grower groups and farmers across the whole of the South Coast from Walpole through to Esperance.
“I then took on an executive officer role with the Fitzgerald Biosphere Group, just as it was morphing into a grower group.”
Johanna and Wayne now farm just over 3000 hectares at Bremer Bay and 385ha at Kalgan.
They run a 60:40 livestock to cropping operation with canola, wheat, barley, lupins and sometimes oats grown at Bremer Bay in association with 1000 Angus breeders run across the two properties.
There is also a 1400 head cattle feedlot run at Bremer Bay with calves going to Harvey Beef to supply a Coles supermarket order and 1000 Merino ewes with some used to produce prime lambs.
Looking at soil acidity in particular, Johanna said it was a significant issue across WA and the whole South Coast.
“Having done a lot of work in that space with grower groups and natural resource management groups I know there is a large amount of research out there and trials to look at,” she said.
“It still comes back to liming as being the best and most cost-effective option at the moment.
“However, for some farmers it can be prohibitive through the cost of freight or price of lime to carry out a liming program year-in, year-out.
“I know within our own business if we have a bad year then we look at what we are going to spend on lime for the next year.
“With the investment required I really want to look at lime efficiency strategies and my Nuffield scholarship will allow for this.
“I am keen to look at how high production systems, such as horticulture, deal with the acidity issue and if there are any new measures that might apply to WA’s broadacre agriculture.”
With the first tour through Nuffield due to take place next March, Johanna is still working out the specifics of where she will go and what she will focus on, but she has some initial thoughts on what she would like to do.
“Once I pin down the research questions, I think that I will need to consider a mix of new production systems as well as old, ancient production systems, which will probably be found in Europe,” she said.
“I think there will be a lot to see in America and China also.
“I have heard that in China once the soil is too acidic farmers there walk away from it.
“I haven’t had that verified but would like to go and see if that is what they actually do because there is a such a requirement in that country to produce a large amount of food.”
Johanna is also curious to see if other countries are using lime as the best way to deal with soil acidity or if other techniques are being used.
“Liming is still our most practical step for ameliorating soil acidity, but what I would like to know is if different techniques are being used in other systems,” she said.
Johanna said ultimately more lime needs to be applied to farms across WA.
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“Certainly in our own business this is the case but at the end of the day when you work out what you have made that year that is when you make your liming decisions,” she said.
“I guess getting it to maintenance mode is the goal, but there are often areas of the farm that need a lot more than maintenance so it is a matter of dealing with that.
“From what I understand, we still don’t have the level of adoption of lime application required across the State to deal with soil acidification.
“There certainly is adoption, but the recommendations are for greater lime applications for both maintenance and amelioration.
“I know the freight issue is a big one and also how to get it down to sufficient depth for it to be efficient.
“It will also be really interesting to see what lime is costing other farmers across the globe, how variable rate technologies are being utilised and how lime is being incorporated at depth.
“What are they finding in other countries and industries, particularly horticulture where a high return on investment is required.”
Johanna is also keen to look at how governments are securing access to basic raw materials, such as lime, for agricultural use which is particularly relevant to WA with the location of lime pits and the competition from other industries including mining and construction.
“With a farming system, if you are exporting product off the paddock you are causing a soil acidity issue,” she said.
“Through my scholarship I am aiming to bring information from overseas to add to our local knowledge base, because at the end of the day, if our soils aren’t healthy and we are not growing good pastures or good crops, our returns are not being maximised and it further leads to other natural resource management issues such as salinity and erosion.”
