SAVING OUR SOILS The gig is up: soil will no longer tolerate being treated like dirt. Now, driven by the cost and availability of inputs and a changing climate, a significant shift towards regenerative farming techniques for soil health is underway.
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Words CARLY MARRIOTT
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he importance of soil health is not news to anyone, with farmers using minimum tillage, beneficial crop rotations and groundcover for the sake of their number one asset for decades. However, the public and private agricultural sector are now combining forces and doing some heavy lifting in the regenerative research and development (R&D) space. This means farmers are looking down the barrel of a triple bottom line bullseye: improved production, healthier soil, and greater social license in the eyes of the ever-curious consumer (think food and carbon). Traditionally, regenerative farming techniques have been side-stepped in favour of more shortterm, economically motivated approaches. Could you be green manuring a perfectly good crop for the sake of your microbes or cashing that crop and making repayments? Thanks to a renewed focus and significant investments into the R&D space, the old adage, ‘it’s hard to be green when you’re in the red’ has been put to shame. Advances in biological nutrition, microbial science, and drought resilience strategies are painting a new picture. There’s profit in being green. FROM MICROBE TO MARKET
Tegan Nock from Loam Bio hails from Bogan Gate. She is a farmer by trade and now an entrepreneur
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THE FARMER
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2024
LEADING THE CHARGE
Opposite, clockwise from top: Tegan Nock at Loam Bio in Orange NSW; Switch Ag potato trials at Wee Waa show farmers eagerness to take steps down a regenerative path looking to restore microbial life essential to soil health; The team at Switch Ag inspecting wheat at Cowra.
out of necessity. Prior to 2019, Tegan felt like she was ‘spinning her wheels’ when it came to the hard slog of sequestering stable organic carbon matter in soils. “We were keenly watching as researchers at the University of Sydney were identifying which microbes play the critical role in carbon sequestration and were hooked,” said Tegan. “They were looking at how microbes play a role in bridging the physical soil matrix with the atmosphere via plant processes.” Alongside four leading farmers, agronomists and climate specialists, Tegan founded Loam Bio and got busy working at the intersection of microbial science, agriculture and climate science. The Loam Bio team has developed new technology to increase stable soil carbon based around fungi colonising the root system of the plant. In a nutshell, it’s a seed treatment that employs microbial technology to support enhanced soil carbon sequestration, plant and soil health. It’s a win-win. Loam’s Orange-based outfit has now expanded to a global network of 135 soil scientists, microbiologists, data scientists, carbon market specialists, agronomists, sales and extension folk. Within the Loam Bio team sits over 20 PhD researchers who have what Tegan describes as strong skillsets in deep sciences. Loam Bio is marrying carbon agronomy with farmer-first soil carbon projects by integrating CarbonBuilder seed treatment into the SecondCrop soil carbon program.
