Linking nutrient movement to soil moisture at weather stations in the NSW Murray and Riverina regions

Through a partnership with the Murray and Riverina Local Land Services (LLS), Riverine Plains Inc installed seven on-farm weather stations across southern NSW during 2016. These weather stations were installed to address the shortage of local weather information and are accessible via the Riverine Plains Inc website: riverineplains.org.au.

To develop greater value from these sites, a series of benchmark soil samples were taken at each site during May and August 2017 and January 2018. These soil samples, in conjunction with soil pit workshops held at selected sites, were used to better understand the soil profiles and properties across the region and to understand how some soil properties, such as soil pH and carbon (C), change
with time.

Soil samples were collected at three depths (0–10, 0–30, and 30–60cm). These depth increments were chosen to reflect the different analyses at different depths (i.e. phosphorus [P] is generally measured in the 0–10cm increment, while other analyses are generally carried out at the 0–30cm increment). The 30–60cm depth was sampled to determine which nutrients had moved to depth (i.e. nitrogen [N], sulphur [S]).

Results from this sampling was published in Research for the Riverine Plains, 2018 and is available via the following link:

2018 RPI Benchmark soil sampling of weather station sites across NSW