Lucerne and barley are a success story on sodic soil

摘要

Barley and lucerne are proving to be the key ingredients in a farming formula which is overcoming the constraints of sodic soils on a central-western NSW property. Mark Judson and his family run a prime lamb enterprise and crop around 440 hectares oftheir 920ha property, Beramana, near Bogan Gate. About 60 percent of the property has sodic soils which are notoriously difficult to manage and can be a major impediment to production. The sodic soils, which dominate the floodplain country on Beramana,typically have a very low calcium/magnesium ratio of around 0.85, making them very dispersive. They can turn to slurry in the wet, or set hard when dry, severely inhibiting water infiltration and plant root penetration. Through on-farm trials and the help of NSW Agriculture and Central West Farming Systems, the Judsons have found that a rotation of barley crops and legume pasture phases is an effective combination for maximising returns from the sodic soils.