"That's a big statement, Mr Wiley"

Senator NASH—.We are out in the central west and last year we had a pretty ordinary year and, by accident, ended up sowing some grazing wheat into a pasture paddock to do nothing more than bulk it up. We ended up stripping it and it was probably the best paddock on the farm. It was all purely by accident. With the trials in the east that you have been doing, what crops are you using, Dr Jones?

Dr Jones—So far we have only been using cereals—wheat predominantly because of the price for wheat, oats, barley and triticale. We strongly recommend against using canola because it is antimycorrhizal and actually kills the bugs in the soil that you need for the carbon highway. So we are recommending for farmers that want to build soil carbon that they do not use canola, but otherwise any of the winter cereals are great.

Senator NASH—What sort of yields are you getting?

Dr Jones—We have 28 trial sites in eastern New South Wales. Last year our yields ranged from two to 41/2 tonnes per hectare. Where we got the 41/2 tonne per hectare crop, nobody else in that region got a crop.

Senator NASH—I am getting at the moisture issue and the impact it is having on this type of cropping.

Dr Jones—If the rainfall is very low the only people that get a crop are the ones that cropped into perennial grasses. If the rainfall is marginal, it is the perennial grass that makes the difference because it changes soil-water relationships completely. The crop can survive and produce to grain if it is sown into perennial grass. If it is sown into bare ground
it will fail in a very low rainfall year….

Mr Wiley— We only started pasture cropping in WA 12 months ago, but we have had some really interesting observations through the drought that are difficult to understand. It seems that some of these perennial grasses actually make the soil wetter rather than drier.

CHAIR—That is a large statement, Mr Wiley.

Mr Wiley—It is. A farmer out the back of Una, which is in the far north-east, took me out there with a shovel and said, ‘Have a look at this!’

Senator HEFFERNAN—The difficulty with that is he might have had a thunderstorm, old mate.

Mr Wiley—No, this was in the drought.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Yes, but that is how it works here and there.

Dr Jones—No, we are talking about a metre apart.

Mr Wiley—We are talking about a plant here and a plant two metres away, in a drought. He said: ‘Here’s a shovel. Have a look at that.’ It was as dry as bone in between the plants but the plant was wet, and it has not rained for five months. It is a concept I had not heard of called hydraulic lift. There is some science to support it. When you start doing weird things and having a look, you find out that some really weird things happen. In terms of some of these radical systems, we have had early indications that have us totally excited. Our farmers are desperate and I cannot exaggerate how bad things are...repared to listen to nut cases like us and have a crack, and things seem to be working. That does not mean there is not a long way to go before we come up with commercially viable packages. But they do not have a choice—the ‘do nothing’ option at the moment does not exist. They will not be there in two years time so there is no risk in being a radical when you are guaranteed to fail, and that is where we are at.

Senator NASH— Dr Jones, Are there any particular soil types where it is apparent that the process works best, or is it
not really indicative?

Dr Jones—It has worked in every soil type that we have tried. The photographs of the trial paddocks in the submission from Warren are actually representative of the three major soil types in the central west. We are comparing soil types from fairly light sandy soil through to heavier soil. We also have a sodic soil in there and we are looking at what we can do about sodicity. That is a huge factor and a constraint to farming in the central west.