Specialised soil advice for smart land managers

Soil survey is done for a multitude of purposes, including land capability. We conduct general and customised soil surveys and investigations to establish land suitability for new crop or horticultural enterprises, effluent irrigation and mining site planning and rehabilitation.   

With a history of research in the Liverpool Plains in building profitable and sustainable practice with landholders across a wide range of soils, we aim to achieve healthy soils, which are resilient to disease and have increased water holding capacity.  

Just like soil health, sustainability is a buzz-word in agricultural enterprises. SoilFutures Consulting works with land managers to develop property planning and practices that are not only sustainable, but economically sensible and productive.

SoilFutures can help you better understand your soil resource, and how the right pasture system for your situation can change the condition of your soil from a degraded and unproductive state to healthy land with highly productive soils. Potentially, your soils could store up to ten times more water by changing from unsuccessful practices. With increasingly erratic climatic conditions, land managers aim for greater resilience to drought and we want to assist you to achieve this.

Soil has the potential to store millions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere. SoilFutures is engaging in soil carbon management, a new and developing market, which has arisen in recent years to help address the problems of climate change and at the same time improving soil health. Soil Carbon credits are now available to people who change management of agricultural land to increase soil carbon sequestration.

SoilFutures Consulting, in conjunction with colleague organisations can provide soil carbon baseline measurement, as well as long term monitoring of soil carbon increases in your soil carbon project.

Waste water from households, from towns, cities, feedlots and abattoirs is a potentially valuable resource which can be used for irrigation of small gardens to parks and to large cropping systems. Re-use of sewer and industrial effluent is regulated by the NSW EPA and equivalent in Australia, and suitable soils must be used for this practice. 

EM survey has high practical uses in water storage planning and dryland salinity management. It is routinely used in Australia as a planning tool in building of large irrigation storages and identification of saline areas. The cost of repairing faulty water storage is often 3 fold greater than building it correctly in the first place.  In an environment where water is expensive and limited, a poor structure will result in lost production as well as loss of water. Use of EM survey can identify potential problem areas before earthworks are commenced.

SoilFutures Consulting offers specialised soil sampling and data interpretation for many agricultural applications. We only use National Australian Testing Authority (NATA) accredited laboratories to ensure reliable high quality test results for your soil samples that are repeatable and guaranteed to be performed to a high standard.  SoilFutures offers individual soil data interpretation and recommendations, tailored to your enterprise.

There are situations in cropping and grazing systems where despite good agronomic advice, things go wrong and can’t be explained or supported by soil test results. SoilFutures offers second opinions on soil test results, based on extensive experience across Australia, as well as more specialised testing to troubleshoot these kinds of problems. 

SoilFutures Consulting offers specialised soil sampling and data interpretation for many agricultural applications. We only use National Australian Testing Authority (NATA) accredited laboratories to ensure reliable high quality test results for your soil samples that are repeatable and guaranteed to be performed to a high standard. 

SoilFutures can contribute to the soil and rehabilitation sections of Environmental Impact Studies (EIS) for mining or special developments.  The soil section of an EIS identifies the qualities and limitations of soils and soil materials as they impact on a development. SoilFutures Consulting provides EIS reviews for developers, community members and organisations. We can summarise, explain and review the often complex information contained in an EIS in order to establish if all potential issues have been addressed. SoilFutures Consulting can offer scientific review of EIS material, especially where it relates to soil, landscape and water issues, which may impact adversely on an interested party.

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SoilFutures also offers independent scientific review of papers and scholarly works on soils.

SoilFutures Consulting offers specialised soil sampling and data interpretation for many agricultural applications. We only use National Australian Testing Authority (NATA) accredited laboratories to ensure reliable high quality test results for your soil samples that are repeatable and guaranteed to be performed to a high standard. 

SoilFutures Consulting has been delivering training to landholders, community groups, students and government agencies for more than 20 years through field days, guest lecturing or preparing course material for TAFE and University courses.   

We offer training in soil to individuals, groups and universities, organisations in practical pedology and applied field soil science, as well as running “know your soil” and practical soil management field days for landholders.

Australia, with its aged and unique soils, has suffered severe land degradation in many areas since the arrival of European Agriculture. The range of land degradation is expansive, and includes soil erosion, acidification, salinity, compaction, development of acid sulfate soils, biodiversity and soil health decline.

Reversing land degradation is possible, and can be achieved with improved planning and addressing issues by adopting more suitable land use practices.