Vic Hub Soil Co-ordinator in New Zealand

Talking issues constraining rapid adoption of improved soil practices

By Dr Peter Fisher, Victoria Drought Resilience Adoption & Innovation Hub and Belinda Nielsen, Tas Farm Innovation Hub and NRM South

The highlight of the year for many soil scientists is the National Soils Conference, where like-minded soil enthusiasts come together to chat all things vadose zone. The most recent conference was no exception, with the extra special addition of our New Zealand colleagues, and travel across The Ditch.

The conference was a wonderful opportunity to discover the new research being undertaken in soil science, meet old and new friends, and take in the soils, sights, and smells of Rotorua. Significantly, this year also welcomed many first-time representatives from the Pacific Region, who brought so much energy and unique perspective to both the soil judging and the conference presentations.

The opening moments of the conference made it clear these few days were to have a different feel to previous conferences. The delegates were treated to a traditional Māori welcome, and a truly special, grounding introductory speech from our conference MC, Kingi Biddle. His introductions to all the conference sessions featured inspiring stories of the Māori connection to soil and land, and taught the delegates some important Māori phases like Te Kiri o Papatūānuku or ‘the skin of Mother Earth’.

With five concurrent sessions each day and a total of approximately 200 oral presentations covering many diverse topics, it would be ungracious to try and select highlights of the conference. Some memorable presentations that we attended included those from Dr Richard Doyle, who, having just retired as Associate Professor of Soil Science at the University of Tasmania, reflected on his experiences of teaching soil science for problem solving and the importance of hands-on experience for students.

In the same session, Dr Peter Fisher presented a paper from the national network of Regional Soil Coordinators, an initiative funded by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The paper covered the issues that constrain rapid adoption of improved soil practices. Soil physics research is arguably at a low level compared wit hother soil disciplines, however, fascinating research from Ms Chenting Jiang as part of the Soil CRC, demonstrated that important advances can still be made by combining new computing power with traditional soil theory.

We could only see a small number of these presentations and there was a lots of waving at people as one rushed from one session to another to catch a particular speaker! Field trips to volcanoes, dairy pastures and forestry all surpassed expectations, a heartfelt thank you to the conference and trip organisers – wow!

Looking forward to seeing you all at the next conference, 1-6 November, in Western Australia next year!

The network of Regional Soil Coordinators are members of the Smart Soils National Community of Practice convened by Soil Science Australia.

The Regional Soil Coordinators and the Smart Soils National Community of Practice are supported by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry through funding from the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program under the Natural Heritage Trust.