MARIAN and Steve Wicks have spent the past 20 years mining around the problem of substantial soil erosion on their Mid-North South Australian property. And their success helped them win this year's State DevBank Ibis Award for excellence in commercialprimary production and nature conservation. Marian and Steve Wicks say their Yacka property, Bengarry, was further "advanced" than most South Australian farms when they bought it 20 years ago. In terms of soil condition, the farm was still recovering from its crisis point of the 1940s when a history of over-clearing and excessive tilling left a legacy of substantial soil erosion. Even the contour banks - among the first constructed in the state in 1946 - could not curb the loss of soil fertility that was choking crop yields and, in some cases, preventing crop germination.
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