Understanding Soil and Farming Systems

The ‘Understanding Soil and Farming Systems’ project began in 2009 and will continue until 2014. The project, through the Future Farming Systems Research Division of the Department of Primary Industries will support the organisation and delivery of data, information and knowledge for modelling and measuring the impacts of farming systems and climate on soil health. The project’s vision of success is that by June 2014, the Department of Primary Industries will provide state-of-the-art soil information systems that deliver quality controlled data for Victorian soils and landscapes. This will improve the quality of model outputs of soil and catchment processes, increased certainty in landscape analysis, and support better soil management for Victorian farming systems and the environment. For further information on the project’s objectives, Factsheet #1 of the 'Understanding soil and farming systems' is available.

The major elements of the ‘Understanding soil and farming systems’ project

A quarterly project newsletter is also available titled ‘Soil Data Matters’.

• January 2012 - Edition #4 of the USFS Newsletter (current)
• September 2011 - Edition #3 of the USFS Newsletter
• June 2011 - Newsletter edition #2 of the USFS Newsletter
• March 2011 - First edition of the USFS Newsletter - Newsletter edition #1

The project is collaborating with external partners to achieve its objectives including the CSIRO through the National Soil Monitoring Project, the Mallee Catchment Management Authority (external link), and the Department of Sustainability and Environment (external link).

The project is a synthesis of several elements:

• Factsheet #2 - Interpretation of primary data into map products (modelling and Digital Soil Mapping)
• Factsheet #3 - Data storage and management (Victorian Soil Information System (VSIS))
• Factsheet #4 - Material archive for soil samples, photographs, notebooks and maps (Victorian Soil Archive)
• Factsheet #5 - Soil survey and field-based research (Land Resource Assessment and Long-Term Agro-ecological Experiments)
• Factsheet #6 - Laboratory analyses: traditional and new (e.g Mid Infrared Spectroscopy)
• Factsheet #7 - Application of remote sensing technology (ground-based, airborne and satellite)

.
Further Information

The project leader is based at DPI in Epsom Richard MacEwan Project leader Senior Research Scientist-Soils Bendigo BH: (03) 5430 4326 Email: richard.macewan@dpi.vic.gov.au

Page Top