Our Research and Development
NSW DPI’s Soil R&D develops, assesses and promotes technologies and management systems that improve soil productivity whilst enhancing its quality and protecting it from degradation.
Our R&D is industry-focused and collaborative, spanning the fundamental to the applied. Our partnerships with a range of stakeholders ensures our technical expertise and R&D findings directly contribute to improvements in on-ground management practices.
Our key R & D themes are:
- Soil carbon sequestration and GHG emissions
- Nutrient management and biological nitrogen fixation
- Soil physical and chemical constraints
- Soil quality and ecosystem services
- Contaminants in soil and agriculture
- Sustainable management of water in agricultural landscapes
- Water productivity in irrigated and rainfed systems
- Design and efficiency of irrigated agricultural systems
- Water balance in agricultural systems
We have state of the art laboratories and controlled environment facilities as well as unique long-term field and trial sites, across a range of soils, agroecological and climatic zones.
Retired DPI soil guru Dr Mark Conyers shares his wisdom in 21 short videos in this Playlist
Our projects
Detection of off-target herbicide deposition​
Understanding the amelioration processes of the subsoil application of amendments
Improving wheat yield on sodic soils
Increasing the effectiveness of Nitrogen fixation in pulses through improved rhizobial strains in the GRDC Northern region
Innovative crop weed control
- contact Lukas van Zwieten
Minimising yield variability to maximise the yield in cotton farming systems
More Profit from Nitrogen (MPfN)
Multiparty process subsoil app
- contact Ehsan Tavakkoli
Not enough Nodules
Nutrient response curves – updated
contact Ehsan Tavakkoli
Quantifying the potential risk of pesticides used on cotton farms
Rangelands Living Skin
Selecting for C
Projects we lead
- Measuring soil microbes 2.1.008
- New products for subsoil constraints. 3.3.002
- New amendments for improving soil structure 3.3.005
- Improved management of herbicide residues in soil 4.2.001
- Addressing complex soil constraints 4.2.002
- Addressing hostile calcareous soil. 4.2.003
- Integrated solutions of accessing soil moisture 4.2.004
Projects we participate in
- Surveying farm practices - 1.2.004
- Increasing nutrient efficiency with new organic amendments 3.1.005
- New fertiliser to overcome nutrient stratification in soils 3.1.007
- Plant based solution to improve soil performance 4.1.002
- Improving decision support systems and modelling platforms 4.3.002
