Natural Resource Management Drought Resilience Program – Grants

Objective: This North East Victoria soil carbon farming demonstration project will create 3 Ha sites on three properties.

Approach:

• On each farm methodologies will be implemented to improve soil carbon, pasture and soil water holding capacity for long term drought resilience.
• These will be topics discussed at field days for a minimum of 300 local and regional landholders.
• Demonstration farms will be online, shareable case studies, taking the viewer through new methods that will create drought resilience and provide new revenue from carbon credits.

Objective: Farmers in arid Australia partner with researchers and practitioners to demonstrate, learn more and share their Rangeland Rehydration journey.

Approach:

• This project is an initiative of the Far West Rangeland Rehydration Alliance to address declining land productivity and expanding soil erosion in a particularly drought-prone part of Australia that is also at risk of damaging flood events due to climate change.
• Using the insights gained from Ecosystem Management Understanding (EMU™), strategically located gully stabilisation will be implemented alongside water spreading and ponding, banks, and revegetation to achieve overwhelming results.
• Collect evidence of the soil, vegetation and production benefits to make strategic improvements to approach and drive uptake and producer-led landscape transformation.

Objective: The project builds landholders capacity to deliver ecosystem services including clean water, clean air, healthy soil and the conservation of biodiversity.

Approach:

• Engage landholders in the planning, implementation and monitoring to protect and enhance soil, creeks, rivers, wetlands and dams.
• Peer to peer learning will be facilitated in workshops on fencing styles, off stream watering, soil health, pasture diversity, grazing management, weed and native plant identification, weed control, bush regeneration & revegetation planting.
• Factsheets, publicity and a community planting day

Objective: Establish a landscape rehydration demonstration site in the Landsdowne catchment.

Approach:

• Support the goal of six local landholders to develop a catchment-based rehydration initiative.
• Undertake engagement activities and the development of the Landsdowne catchment rehydration scoping and engagement plan.

Objective: This project proposes a paradigm shift in sustainable agronomic practices based on Water and Carbon Neutral Farming (WCNF).

Approach:

• Reduce the main external input – irrigation water – by building soils that have superior physical, chemical, and biological properties compared with conventional soils.
• The key to better soil health using WCNF principles is to produce biochar, a porous media that sequesters carbon and improves soil water holding capacity from agricultural waste residues and incorporate it back into the soil.
• Industry uptake will be supported through seminars, factsheets, and on-site field days where the proposed trial will be showcased.

Objective: This project will continue trials on 20 farms and extend research and innovation to 10 more farms, to establish a viable community of practice.

Approach:

• Innovations include several new tillage systems, diverse multispecies cover crops adapted to seasons, soil additives including compost and biocarbon, strategic planting of shelter belts, livestock fodder supplements and effluent treatment methods.
• Two universities engaged with the research components, and the resultant pool of knowledge will form a basis for future farm practices in the region.

Objective: This project will increase the capacity of dryland farmers to respond to drought by demonstrating novel technology using Ultra High Water (UHP) for multiple operations in the cropping cycle.

Approach:

• Establish three demonstration sites in Northern NSW with three or more operations demonstrated per site.
• UHP technology will be demonstrated for cereal stubble prior to planting, direct placement of fertiliser in crop destruction of cotton post-harvest.

Objective: This project will support farmers in the Loddon Campaspe Irrigation District (LCIR) to undertake transformational changes in the management of irrigation water.

Approach:

• Twenty farmers from across the LCIR will build drought resilience in their farming system by developing an individual action plan for future climate scenarios and learning from farmers who have already adapted.
• North Central CMA will work collaboratively with Murray Dairy and Agriculture Victoria to expand the reach of the newly created Water Module to the cropping, mixed livestock and horticulture industries operating in the LCIR.

Objective: This project will partner with Kangaroo Island landholders to develop water security plans for their properties.

Approach:

• High resolution topographical information will be assessed with climate predictions, the value of property scale water dependent ecosystems, farm layout, production systems and business need to develop plans.
• Two demonstration sites will be established to promote the benefits of water security to Kangaroo Island landholders.

Objective: Identify key opportunities to adopt regenerative agriculture practices that complement and enhance the low rainfall farming systems of south eastern Australia, including where current regenerative practices have been successfully employed.

Approach:

• Assist growers to understand what it is to be regenerative, highlighting cropping and grazing practices that are known to increase biomass, maximize soil cover, improve soil health, and build soil carbon specifically in low rainfall environments.
• Soil sampling will establish baselines that determine the nature of soil carbon and biology, resilience, and response to soil type, season, and farming practices.
• Learning by group discussion and written extension.

Objective: The project will identify mechanisms for improving water-use efficiency for mango orchards, in addition to demonstrating advantages of alternative low water-use crops.

Approach:

• Examine water-usage of major mango varieties and suggest efficient water usage techniques that maintain production.
• Demonstrate the benefits of diversification to additional low water-use crops, such as agave.
• Conduct scenario planning workshops, in collaboration with growers

Objective: Dairy farms to improve the resilience of their business against drought, improve groundcover, nutrient utilisation and soil health, thereby reducing the risk of sediment and nutrient loss.

Approach:

• Engage with 270 dairy businesses to adapt key agronomic and soil conservation strategies from regional grain farmers.
• Coaching support will be provided by grain farmers to 15 dairy farmers.
• Outcomes will be extended to the broader industry through one-on-one contact and an extension platform.

Objective: This project will work with four farmer groups in Southern Victoria (South West and Gippsland) to pilot a new approach to enhance drought preparedness during good periods in the climatic cycle to build greater buffers for inevitable difficult periods.

Approach:

• The project will INinvolve group workshops, individual risk profiling of each business (using the appropriate tools) and the preparation of drought preparedness plan that documents key strategic actions to implement and tactical decisions when heading towards, when in and coming out of drought.
• The process will be documented and has application Australia wide.

Objective: Undertake a regenerative grazing trial on Tasmania’s drought prone east coast native and sown pastures.

Approach:

• Pasture recovery rates in the trial areas will be monitored on ground and from satellite
• Trial will be undertaken with Cape Herbert farming tenant, researchers, NRM-South, farm extension organisations and an indigenous land management service provider.

Objective: Provide farmers in marginal grazing country in the Flinders districts a tool and technique for modifying soil surfaces and establishing native perennial plants on degraded ground (including saltbush and fodder species).

Approach:

• Modify an arid zone seeding machine. The machine will be promoted as an important component of regenerative agricultural practices to help farmers maintain cover during future drought conditions.
• Results will be communicated through field days, social media, and farmer networks.

Objective: To achieve widespread and expert use of adaptive planned grazing (APG) in local area.

Approach:

• Build on existing expertise to make adaptive planned grazing the new normal.
• Sixty local farmers will be introduced to APG as a drought resilience strategy through participation in initial workshops.
• Forty collaborators will implement APG on targeted paddocks on their properties.
• Three new grazing groups will use peer learning and support to implement APG.

Objective: Provide an enhanced local weather forecasting and a centralised dashboard to enable farmers to make better decisions and improve their farm’s resilience to a changing climate.

Approach:

• This project will install weather stations, soil moisture probes and digital rain gauges in the south coast of WA and integrate the data into a dashboard to maximise farmer usage.
• Increasing the data collected will improve the accuracy of weather forecasting at a local level.
• Soil moisture probes will enable farmers to measure the water stored in the soil and for example, determine how risky it would be to grow a summer crop.

Objective: To prepare primary producers, land users, and the general community to be more drought resilient and resistant.

Approach:

• Establishment of identified Bigambul Caring for Country and Drought Resistance Officers supported by two team leader/management and coordination positions.
• Recruited personnel will undertake accredited fire and traditional cultural burning/rejuvenation training, prior to moving to deliver targeted cultural burning and traditional land and ecology rejuvenation and resistance techniques.
• Provide on-country demonstrations/information sessions/workshops that will be open to whole-of-community, with particular emphasis on primary producers and agricultural/pastoral companies.

Objective: Provide an expert workshop series will develop landholder awareness-knowledge farm water management.

Approach:

• Participants will be supported to plan and apply new knowledge on their farm.
• Four demonstration sites will be established/field days held.

Objective: To identify practices that build drought resilience production systems and landscapes

Approach:

• Existing groups of strongly motivated producers in Eyre Peninsula & Northern and Yorke innovate to improve their sustainability and drought resilience through improving soil and landscape function and natural capital.
• Farmers will be supported by multidisciplinary researchers and practitioners to validate and adapt practices and facilitate events to build capacity.
• Knowledge sharing will occur at the group level, as well as regionally and nationally through building and collecting stories of practice change.

Objective: Build skills and knowledge to identify limitations and develop innovative methods for improved farming.

Approach:

• Undertake skill development with farmers on using innovative tools to identifying soil limitations.
• Develop water security plans with farmers including innovative methods of water capture, storage and reticulation allowing improved grazing practices.
• Participants involved will be developed through Ag Bureau SA which has 60 farmer branches across SA and 1100 members.

Objective: Clarify the linkage between implementation of carbon farming activities and drought resilience of farms, in both a biophysical and financial sense.

Approach:

• Design of a publicly available guideline for drought resilience and carbon projects for integration into the carbon farming framework.

Objective: Provide viable, drought adapted, profitable, low risk landscape regeneration and resilience building for Tasmanian farmers.

Approach:

• Use case studies and experience of successful regenerative farmers.
• Contextualise, replicate and test regenerative grazing practices on a large scale through on-farm demonstrations, measuring ground cover, feed, satellite ground cover data, drone technology, on farm ground truthing and estimate profitability.
• The results and guidelines will be provided to Tasmanian farmers through workshops, demonstrations, social media and the mainstream media.

Objective: Optimise management strategies so that the use of groundwater can be maximised in a sustainable manner.

Approach:

• Integrate metrics from a progressive vineyard in Langhorne Creek into SARDI’s numerical models to enable assessment of the long-term impacts of scheduling strategies (volume, quality, and timing of the dual water sources).

Objective: Demonstrate to growers that use of soil moisture retention technology can have significant benefits.

Approach:

• Trials and extension to demonstrate to growers that using soil moisture retention technology at seeding on a range of soil types will increase crop emergence percentages and improve growers soil water use, herbicide efficacy, nutrient cycling, and economic resilience.

Objective 1: Increase soil health and resilience across our landscapes by encouraging farmers to experiment with new and innovative ways of maintaining continuous live groundcover on their paddocks.
Objective 2: Seek out and provide ongoing support to local farmers who are interested in adopting transformative NRM practices.

Approach:

• Facilitate adoption of practices such as establishing perennial palatable native fodder species using the Enrich model and variations on it, multi-species forage pastures, pasture cropping and planned grazing management.

Objective: Collect and assess information on water resources and the projected impacts of climate change to enable landholders to develop farm water plans and make informed decisions regarding their farm water supplies and future water security.

Approach:

• Increase the capacity of landholders and community to balance competition for water resources between users and the environment.
• Improve the sustainability of farming enterprises and the management of groundwaters, and local and RAMSAR listed lakes.

Objective: Investigate the breakthrough innovation of relay cropping, to increase production sustainably and substantially with minimal risk to both the natural resource base and agricultural business.

Approach:

• Research trials and on farm demonstrations, producers will be provided the opportunity to investigate and actively participate in locally relevant suitable options for the adoption of new technologies that will make them more resilient into the future.

Objective: To support graziers and dairy farmers to experiment with innovative farming practices to increase preparedness and resilience for future drought.

Approach:

• Capacity building and natural resource capital building activities.
• Support farmers to design and implement new farming systems based on rotational grazing, natural sequence farming and increased native vegetation cover that builds soil carbon, improves soil water holding capacity and utilises natural processes that sustain production during drought.

Objective: The Resilient Hills and Fleurieu project aims to increase the resilience of farming systems.

Approach:

• Increase capacity, whole of system thinking, strengthen networks and partnerships, and contribute to building resilience to future drought and climate change.
• Development of multi-species summer fodder crop demonstration sites in partnership with the Fleurieu Farming Systems group.
• Monitoring sites across a commercial farm converting to regenerative agriculture practices.
• Extension to the farming community through three field days.
• a Climate Smart Farming forum.
• Champion case studies and development of a practitioner’s network.

Objective: To deliver a trial for improved water retention in soil, resulting in improved drought resilience.

Approach:

• Experiment with various combinations of biological applications to the soil including worm compost and compost, and the use of multi versus single species cropping.
• The water retention benefit will be measured primarily by infiltration testing.

Objective: To work with four key landholders to establish regenerative farming demonstration sites in the Rockhampton and Callide regions of central Queensland.

Approach:

• Experiments to compare the most appropriate land management practices to improve soil health, improve soil carbon levels and improve drought resilience.
• Sites will be monitored for carbon, nutrient, and microbial levels.
• The second phase will focus on a peer-to-peer model with landholders being involved at each step of the project. Field days with 400 landholders and 4 workshops with 120 landholders discussing which practices are proven to be successful.

Objective: Demonstrate to land managers that soil groundcover is more accurately monitored and measured using satellite imagery.

Approach:

• The project will enable land managers to identify the trigger point more accurately for removing livestock so that alternate management strategies can be employed, and remaining groundcover is preserved.
• This will improve long term soil health through lower potential for degradation through wind erosion and an increase in organic matter cycling into the soil.

Objective: The aim is to increase groundcover, thus protecting soils, in pastures and erosion-prone areas.

Approach:

• Use of drone technology to seed and increase groundcover in six types of land in The Central Tablelands, NSW.
• Remote sensing systems on drones will also be used to plan seeding areas and to monitor growth. This will also create accurate vegetation mapping that can be used to boost efficiency.

Objective: Provide landholders in the Ovens Landcare Network with resources to plan for and manage drought conditions by increasing the understanding of how water, landscape, and vegetation interact.

Approach:

• A series of events will be held across the catchment area to explore hydrology, water storage and soil capacity.
• Develop water management plans with 30 landholders.
• Provide examples for the broader community to further increase the awareness of best practice land and water management.

Objective: Provide decision-support information, training and emerging decision-support software tools for members and producers in the Hovells Creek district.

Approach:

• Install two soil moisture probes to complement existing probe, train members to create drought-risk scenarios.
• The project builds on two recent grants, one which allowed installation of the first probe and another in which a series of public seminars were run to support producers' drought resilience with expert information in a social setting.

Objective: Increase awareness and knowledge around the values of natural capital on farms and the scope for future income streams from ecosystem services on privately managed land.

Approach:

• Work with 40 landholders to survey their contributions to ecosystem services on farm.
• Undertake a pilot to benchmark the natural resource baseline condition through scientific assessment of six farms across the Glen Innes district.
• A full report will be collated and presented at the completion of the pilot and presented at a farmer forum.

Objective: The project will demonstrate to primary producers that soil water use and nutrient cycling can be increased through growing long season crop species and varieties in rotation with other crops.

Approach:

• Demonstrate that crops with a longer growing season can grow deeper in the soil and utilise a greater amount of soil moisture and nutrients.
• Approach will improve long term soil health through an increase in organic matter from previous root systems which will contribute to holding more water and nutrients and lower the amount of nutrients leached out of the root zone.

Objective: The Future Ready Regions - Drought Adaptation Engagement project will increase the drought resilience of 100 farmers and agricultural enterprises in the Glenelg-Hopkins CMA region.

Approach:

• Create a repository of recently developed local research, data, and tools to support drought adaptation and delivering an intensive capacity building and extension program to enable farmers to access and use the material for farm planning.

Objective: The project will provide land managers in the Lower Blackwood catchment with the knowledge and understanding required to improve their farm’s drought resilience through increasing the biodiversity of their soil and pasture systems.

Approach:

• There will be a series of practical workshops, supported by on site demonstrations at separate farm locations within the catchment.
• Workshops and demonstrations will show how to build soil biodiversity and health using bio stimulants, multispecies cover cropping & perennial pastures.

Objective: The project will investigate a whole system stubble management approach investigating different seeding systems and their interaction with retained crop stubble to measure the impact ground cover has on soil temperature and soil moisture retention.

Approach:

• A replicated trial will allow growers to visually observe and quantify the impact of a whole of system approach to ground cover retention in sandy soil types in the Northern Agricultural Region of WA.
• Through workshops, and media, landholders will increase their knowledge and understanding of the impact of ground cover on soil moisture and soil temperature properties, allowing them to prepare and respond to the changing climate and future drought, specifically for sandy soil types.

Objective: Support landholders in improving the drought resilience through experimentation of NRM practices, systems, and approaches, fostering innovation and transformational change in the management of their natural capital.

Approach:

• Facilitate a Resilient Grazing Support Group within the Condobolin district.
• Facilitation will provide landholders the ability to look at and synergise to find better ways to become resilient in the face of future climate variability and risk, with particular emphasis on rotational grazing principles.

Objective: A demonstration of soil moisture sensors for Gippsland’s vegetable industry.

Approach:

• The project will provide an opportunity for vegetable growers to experiment with using soil moisture sensors in the context of short-cycle crops, a setting which has not seen much adoption of the technology.
• Provide regular updates to the local industry summarising the data and observations from the site through a fortnightly newsletter, the use of social media, as well as face-to-face extension delivery.

Objective: Increase the capacity of primary producers to adapt to drought through a transformation and whole-of system approach.

Approach:

• Establish a demonstration site on an Eyre Peninsular farm where Human Induced Regeneration and Virtual Fencing will be combined into a new land management system.
• Project activities will strengthen the networks between farmers, NRM and the proponents the technologies to increase regional capacity and the knowledge sharing of skills including soil cover, biodiversity value, livestock productivity and alternative income from carbon markets.

Objective: Research enhanced desalination technology and wastewater brine management in regional Victoria to increase viability.

Approach:

• The availability of reuse water from the Horsham wastewater treatment plant is a significant resource for the farming research, however the saline nature of the water, in particular sodium, limits the quantity that can be applied without damaging soils and many crops.

Objective: A collaboration to demonstrate that through innovative practices, serious erosion can be effectively managed and leveraged into productive outcomes.

Approach:

• Two Landcare demonstration sites within the Rowsley Valley will be established.
• One site will transform steep, tunnel-eroded grazing land into a shrub/forage grazing site. Contour ripping and shrub planting will stabilise the soil while farm productivity will increase through extra grazing capacity, with the shrubs thriving in harsh Summer conditions.
• The second site will showcase how farm forestry productivity can be increased while stabilising erosive country.

Objective: Encourage the enhancement, establishment, and preservation of native pollinator habitat through the creation of Pollinator Corridors on private and public land.

Approach:

• Establishment connecting pollinator corridors across mixed-use Catchment and the subsequent increase in native pollinators within the area.
• An increase in native pollinators will enable land managers to produce higher crop yields of better quality, whilst improving biodiversity and environmental resilience on land that may otherwise only support a monoculture.

Objective: To investigate a novel approach for tree selection for future climates.

Approach:

• Test the hypothesis that trees from future climate analogue locations are better adapted for future climates.
• The project will complement an existing common garden trial in Victoria and investigate if tree provenances of yellow box and grey box from hotter and drier locations are also more drought tolerant.
• The project will increase capacity and share knowledge by evaluating strategies for NRM that innovate tree selection.

Objective: Local farmers will increase understanding of drought resilient forage species, drought management, soil types, perennial pastures and the process of implementing a shrub forage system on-farm.

Approach:

• Explore the practical aspects of switching from an annual pasture grazing system to a drought resilient shrub forage paddock.
• Two demonstration sites (approximately 10Ha each) based on the research conducted by Future Farm Industries Co-operative Research Centre Enrich project.
• Opportunities to share demonstration site hosts learned knowledge, successes and challenges will be provided through regular social media posts, E-News media and a workshop including a field walk.

Objective: Develop a range of Small Farms Property Planning Tools to support small growers in the Sydney Basin to be economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable.

Approach:

• The tools would be based on “whole-of-system” thinking and would be a mix of online and face to face.
• Structure a meaningful program with adaptation at the core, that can be used not just in Greater Sydney but to support small scale farmers throughout the state.

Objective: The project, which will be co-ordinated by a project officer at Riverine Plains Inc, involves a farmer discussion group who will examine improved soil management at two demonstration sites.

Approach:

• Two field days and two workshops over an 18-month period to address soil quality parameters and how they are linked to storing more rainfall for crop production.
• The discussion group will include 10 farmers and three agronomists in the Murchison district in north-central Victoria.

Objective: To mitigate risk associated with droughts conditions, such as seed crop failure and predation by drought effected birdlife.

Approach:

• Adoption of two forms of technology:
  • Tensiometers
  • Weather stations which measure soil moisture, relative humidity, temperature, and wind data
  • Bird Control lasers to prevent birds effected by droughts conditions predating mature seed crops.

Objective: Deliver training and capacity building opportunities focused on improving the ecological function of soils.

Approach:

• Provide practical skills and increased knowledge, enabling land managers to implement changes in their farming businesses. This will lead to improved soil health, increased soil carbon & consequently increased water-holding capacity, ultimately increasing preparedness and resilience to the impacts of drought.
• The project will incorporate case studies and field walks with land managers in the region who have begun shifting to more regenerative agricultural practices.

Objective: Develop a Drought Planning Process online course based on the drought preparedness content delivered at Resource Consulting Services (RCS) in-person workshops.

Approach:

• Hosted on the RCS Global Learning Hub website, free access will be granted to this non-accredited online course.
• Landholders will be provided with easy to navigate stages to address a whole-of-system" approach to drought resilience for their agricultural business, people, land, stock, business.

Objective: This project addresses the support gaps and lack of a structured network for the growing Scenic Rim cohort in Queensland.

Approach:

• Project activities comprise four key elements:
  • Mapping the knowledge, skills and confidence levels of this group for NRM practices and science.
  • Piloting a producer network connected to the existing Landcare network in the Scenic Rim region of Queensland from Beaudesert to Boonah and Kalbar.
  • Four NRM discovery workshops to build or strengthen NRM fundaments for drought resilience, risk management, and improved profitability and sustainability.
  • Stakeholder mapping and communications.

Objective: This project will provide Murray Mallee farmers practical information for establishing shelterbelts on their farms to access carbon revenue.

Approach:

• Organisations will link land managers who are interested in communicating to their wider farming districts how establishing shelterbelts can unlock carbon revenue for multiple benefits.
• Shelterbelt benefits are well documented, however, the link between receiving income from this ecosystem service has not been well understood.

Objective: This project addresses the support gaps and lack of a structured network for the rapidly expanding cohort in Moreton Bay, South East Queensland.

Approach:

• Project activities:
  • Mapping the knowledge, skills and confidence levels of this group for NRM practices and science.
  • Piloting a producer network connected to the existing Landcare network in the Moreton Bay region of Queensland from Samford to Dayboro and Kilco, Queensland.
  • Four NRM discovery workshops to build or strengthen NRM fundamentals for drought resilience, risk management, and improved profitability and sustainability.
  • Stakeholder mapping and communications.

Objective: Improve current regenerative land management practices.

Approach:

• Introduction of broad-acre fodder shrub plantings, both native and introduced, to reduce reliance of imported fodder throughout the non-growing season.
• Provide a working example of potential landscape design and planting methods for both successful stand establishment and incorporation into producers' existing livestock enterprises.

Objective: Project will run a two-day conference and workshop event to educate, build awareness and connect primary producers with the information, tools and systems that will support their capacity to prepare for and respond to future drought and climate change.

Approach:

• The event, Agribusiness Summit: Dealing with Drought, will see between 150-200 landholders from across south west Qld and northern NSW come together to learn and experiment.

Objective: The Border Ranges Richmond Valley Landcare Network (BRRVLN) will facilitate community collaboration and on-ground actions to enable a landscape-scale transition to drought resilience.

Approach:

• Landscape rehydration workshop for landholders in Roseberry Creek, northern NSW.
  • Detailed catchment-scale feasibility study including high-level scoping and planning, and determination of the required regulatory approvals, costing, and design for suitable on-ground works.

Objective: The project will develop a novel approach to restoring tropical forest vegetation to farms and landscapes, at a scale meaningful for cost-effectively building future climate resilience.

Approach:

• The technique catalyses natural tree regeneration by suppressing over-growing pasture grasses through strategically timed herbicide applications, combined with small plantings.
• Demonstration trials to improve the capacity of farmers, practitioners, and agencies to restore native vegetation, supporting both production and biodiversity habitat.
• Concurrent drone mapping and on-ground assessments will provide data to monitor vegetation development, and an accounting system will track the costs of restoration works.

Objective: The project will improve local graziers’ knowledge and capacity to implement regenerative agriculture on their properties in the Lockyer Valley Region.

Approach:

• Implementing regenerative agriculture on properties will increase farm productivity, sustainability, and resilience to climate change (including drought) as well protect and improve the regions' natural resources.
• This will be achieved through an open on-property field day and three, two-day regenerative agriculture workshops for up to 60 landholders.

Objective: The project will improve pasture production in the non-arable hills/rangeland pasture landscape of the Mid North of South Australia, leading to reduced risk of erosion, increased water infiltration and ultimately improved production and profitability of South Australian landholders.

Approach:

• Four replicated trial/demonstration sites will be established consisting of herbicide and fertiliser treatments and running field days for local growers to observe the responses and increases in production.

Objective: Experiment with species trees at a demonstration site to determine if western species are more robust in a changing climate.

Approach:

• To replace old, expired, and inadequate windbreaks of pine trees with wider shelter breaks of drought-tolerant native tree and shrub species.
• Deliver community engagement, capacity building and the extension of natural resource concepts through the development of stakeholder relationship and community engagement in field days.

Objective: To undertake on-farm experimentation at Mudgee, NSW and establish a demonstration site.

Approach:

• Collect data and knowledge on using cover crop mulch, soil moisture sensors and crop sap flow sensors in a cherry orchard to save water and increase soil health.
• Demonstration site will:
  • quantify the benefits of using soil capacitance probes and tree sap flow sensors to allow monitoring and adjustment of the irrigation schedule to improve management responses to heat and water stress caused by drought conditions.

Objective: To improve the capacity of horticulture to respond to future drought circumstances.

Approach:

• Experimenting with new technologies such as precision irrigation, including drip irrigation and soil moisture sensors
• Demonstration of technologies to allow businesses to change practices with evidence-based results