HLN’s Acid Soils Initiative Field Day

More than 50 landholders turned out for Holbrook Landcare’s Acid Soils Initiative workshop last week, at “Boorook”, Morven.
Jason Condon & Helen Burns, NSW DPI gave a clear message on the benefits of lime to production outcomes in both grazing and cropping systems.
The message to producers was:

• know where the acid layer is in your soil by soil testing at 5cm increments
• lime to the new target of pHCa 5.5 so that subsoil acidity constraints are addressed
• consider a once off large lime application followed by more frequent smaller liming events to compact the increasing soil acidity issues we see in this region.

John Francis, Agrista, turned these management costs into a series of equations that calculated profit per DSE post liming, accounting for the increase in livestock productivity as a result of this investment. John was able to clearly demonstrate to producers the economic return on their liming program.

Thank you to the Finlay family for hosting the day.

This workshop was supported by MLA, Grasslands Society, NSW DPI & the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.