Practical Data Key to Influencing Change in Reef Catchments

REEF WATER QUALITY: PRACTICAL DATA KEY TO INFLUENCING CHANGE

TULLY AND JOHNSTONE WATER QUALITY PROGRAM WRAPS UP

29 May 2024

Ongoing water, soil and leaf monitoring data is helping to improve production and reduce fertiliser runoff from farms in the Tully-Innisfail region.

Farmers have been working with scientists as part of the $10.7 million Tully-Johnstone Water Quality Program for the last three years, and the data from waterways and crops is influencing changes in land management resulting in further reductions in dissolved inorganic nitrogen flowing into waterways and, ultimately, out to the Great Barrier Reef.

Terrain NRM’s Charles Hammond said scientific data that was readily available to landholders, including local-scale water monitoring, was providing landholders with information to make informed farm management decisions.

“There have been more than five years of local-scale water quality monitoring in this region now, and plenty of communication with landholders about results, leading to solutions that are devised together, with wins for farmers and the environment,’’ he said.

“You can’t effectively manage what you don’t measure. Over the last 15 years of reef water quality programs, we’ve learnt that by giving growers the practical information they are seeking they can make more informed decisions.”

The Tully-Johnstone Water Quality Program is funded by the partnership between the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and the Australian Government’s Reef Trust, and is integrated with a Queensland Government-funded water quality monitoring project. The program, which is managed by Terrain NRM, has taken several approaches to further reduce nitrogen runoff in the region. With a strong focus on water quality monitoring, CSIRO and James Cook University’s TropWater have expanded an existing program to include more paddock and sub-catchment-scale data.

In other areas, Liquaforce has developed an online platform for farm, soil, and production data to help farmers with long-term performance monitoring, and Innisfail Canegrowers has been leading the Cassowary Coast Reef Smart Farming Project.

In this project, extension officers are working with cane and banana farmers to improve productivity and optimise nitrogen use efficiency through improved nutrient planning that identifies opportunities to increase nutrient uptake in plants.

Mr Hammond said the Tully-Innisfail region was a focus for reducing dissolved inorganic nitrogen runoff because of its combination of rainfall, topography and land use.

“The Tully and Johnstone River catchments have high rainfall, steep mountains and short sharp rivers. They also have intensive agriculture on the coastal plain.”

He said ongoing monitoring was important in the region.

“Over the past 5 to 6 years we’ve answered many of the questions that farmers had about runoff by providing them with practical, timely and locally relevant water sampling so they can link farm practices to what’s running off their paddock. While this program is ending, it’s important that we continue to build long-term data sets for priority areas so we can continue to link land management, new practices and even new crops, to water quality.”