Food from a heavy black soil

Description:  Dry, crumbly, heavy black flat soil, self mulching clay

Location: flat paddock and backyard on northern Wimmera plains

Family Values/uses for this soil:

Family Farming – Home backyard orchard for our own food use

Commercial family-run farm enterprise – Broad acre cropping of cereals and legumes to local and global markets – Produce goes to feed the ‘world’

Challenges for this clay based soil:
A thirsty soil which produces well with moisture, but crops fail without adequate rain fall or watering.
It shrinks when it is dry  and expands when it is wet, creating sinkholes and water lost to intended plants

Management to prevent sinkholes in the orchard:
A heavy layer of mulch (e.g. straw) helps to maintain a more even moisture level, which reduces cracking and water running down cracks and sink holes

See more
– about the Wimmera Soil types from this WRLA report
– about soil challenges and managements of more Wimmera farms growing food for their family and the world in these Batchica and Bangerang  Soil Selfies  and in LN post
-about growing a family farm on black clays in this Darling Downs Soil Selfies from Queensland

Credits : KP, of Jeparit gives permission for these photos and information to be used under a (cc) license 2015 Editing and page created by Jeanie Clark, enviroed4all®, Warracknabeal, for use in education under a (cc) licence 2015

page published 26 July 2015, updated 9 January 2016