Join us in Kairi for a soil health field day on Sunday 4 December…

Farmers from across all industries are encouraged to come to the event, which will focus on low-cost establishment of perennial pastures, cover-cropping in broadacre systems, and worm farms.
There will be a farm visit, as well as presenters a the Kairi Hotel, and there’ll be plenty of time to ask questions, share experiences and ideas.

The day is being organised by farmer-led soil health group Wet Tropics Soilcare (WETS) with support from Terrain NRM.

WETs’ Michelle Milicevic says the group welcomes newcomers.

“We range from orchardists to graziers and large-scale commercial farmers to smaller producers. One thing that we all have in common is soil health. And events like this, with guest speakers and visits to farms, are also about people sharing their soil health challenges with others, and the changes they’ve made or are thinking of making to improve soil health.”

Sunday’s event begins at the Evans family farm in Kairi, where mixed species cover-cropping trials are underway to find the most cost-effective pasture enhancement to improve soil condition and plant diversity.

Cattle are being used as the mechanisms to sow perennial legume seeds on the farm, at a site where 10 different combinations of compost, Agfert, Ozcal, hay and seed are being trialled.

“After seeing a decline in health in an annual cover crop planted within a perennial pasture, a demonstration site was co-created to find ways to improve soil fertility and establish perennial diversity in an established grazing pasture system,’’ Terrain agronomist Sally Fields said.

“This trial is introducing multi-species pastures into a grazing paddock to improve the pasture. It’s also trialling a low-cost and low-mechanised system to seed the pasture, in place of machinery and seeders.”

Kellie Evans will be talking about her work to improve pasture diversity for her cattle.

The next stop is the Kairi Hotel where guest speakers are Nutrigold’s Glenn Oliver and Terrain’s Sally Fields. Glenn has a wealth of knowledge on worm farming and will be talking about the benefits of worm castings or “worm juice” for soil, as well as his experiences setting up a commercial worm farm on the Tablelands.