Floristic survey of Northern sandplains between Perth and Geraldton

A database of plant lists from over 2,500 sites was compiled from the the Northern Sandplains between Perth and Geraldton. Over 2,500 plant taxa were recorded from the area. Preliminary classification revealed in the order of 500 different floristic types. Analysis of these demonstrated strong regional patterns of floristic composition related to geology and soils. Consistencies in these patterns indicated a need to review the location of some of the botanical district boundaries

Floristic survey of remnant vegetation in the Dandaragan area, Western Australia

A study involving the documentation of the extent and floristic composition of patches of native vegetation left uncleared by agricultural development is described. Floristic regions were defined in the study area by detailed analysis of the floristic data. The concentration of the major conservation reserves in only a few of these regions left the floristic variation of most of these regions poorly represented conservation reserves. About 13 percent of the private property remains uncleared

Food waste can be diverted from landfill and utilised via anaerobic digestion (AD) to produce biogas. The liquid by-product of AD is commonly referred to as digestate, and this can be an organic certifiable biofertilizer. Digestate in Europe is frequently used in agriculture, though is not commonly used in the urban retail market. Biochar is another organic matter which can adsorb and retain the nutrients, and also could decrease the adverse effects of high nitrogen content of soil

Soil information is critical for efficient and sustainable agricultural management. However, there is typically a hiatus between soil information which government agencies charged with supporting agriculture develop and deliver, and the information land managers can easily use for management in the paddock. This hiatus is largely due to (1) differences in the spatial scale of information needed by these different groups, and (2) communication-style inhibiting soil science information into management advice. We outline and evaluate a ‘three factor functional soil classification’ based on soil texture, depth, and gravel content for south-western WA, referred to as Profile Texture Classes (PTC)

Are Ironstone Gravel Soils in Southwest Western Australia: All the Same?

Ironstone gravel soils are widespread, locally common, and important for cropping in Western Australia (WA). The spatial extent of these soils is reasonably well known, but geographic differences and distinct subgroups of gravel soils are not. We present a novel approach to map ironstone gravel layers and associated fine earth texture classes to improve understanding of gravel soil characteristics and distribution across southwestern WA

Soil capability assessment for expanding irrigated agriculture in the Irwin focus area and surrounding lands

The Midlands groundwater and land assessment is a $4.7 million Water for Food project using Royalties for Regions funding. It is seeking to confirm groundwater availability in focus areas that may form precincts of 2000–3000ha suitable for intensive irrigated horticulture. Irwin is one of these. The Department of Water identified the Irwin focus area for investigation for irrigated agriculture potential. It covers almost 7000ha to the east of Dongara in the Mid West region of Western Australia. This report provides the land assessment for the Irwin area. We expanded the investigation to include land outside of the focus area because our review of the regional soil-landscape mapping indicated that this land had potential for irrigated agriculture. This ‘survey area’ covers about 34000ha. This report details the soil-landscapes in the Irwin survey area and provides related information, including descriptions of geology, geomorphology and the soils, and an outline of the capability of the soil and land for irrigated horticulture. To provide a better assessment for irrigated agriculture, we remapped the previous 1:250000 soil-landscapes of the survey area at the more-detailed scale of 1:100000. We described 117 soil sites and 15 of these received a significant amount of laboratory analyses. Our assessment found that over half of the soils in the survey area have moderate to good capability for horticulture, with the following limitations: • The available water is unsuitable for irrigation. • The fertile Yardarino Flats have moderate amounts of salt at depth in some areas. While this is not a risk for broadacre agriculture, irrigating these soils may cause the watertable to rise and bring salt closer to the rooting zone. High evaporation may also lead to salt concentrating at the soil surface. • The alluvial soils have highly sodic subsoils, indicating poor drainage and a risk of waterlogging. The boron levels of some subsoils are high enough to limit root growth of some crops. • The wind erosion risk is high for most sandy-surfaced soils, so investment in soil management would be required, especially for annual horticulture. • With the high evaporation and the need to control wind erosion, irrigation in this area has a high water-use requirement. • The use of poorer quality water for irrigation can also be problematic on the sandy slopes surrounding the clayey alluvial flats, potentially leading to a build-up of salt in the subsoil. Apart from small, niche opportunities, water of a suitable quality in the quantities required for extensive irrigated agriculture development is not generally available in the Irwin area. Dryland cropping and grazing would be the preferred land uses on the highly productive alluvial flats, and irrigation on the surrounding sandplain would require careful management

Soil capability assessment for expanding irrigated agriculture in the Dinner Hill focus area, Midlands, Western Australia

The Midlands groundwater and land assessment is a $4.7 million Water for Food project using Royalties for Regions funding. It is seeking to confirm groundwater availability in focus areas that may form precincts of 2000–3000ha suitable for intensive irrigated horticulture. The Dinner Hill focus area is one of these. The Dinner Hill focus area covers about 50 200ha to the north-west of Moora and north of Dandaragan, in the Midlands area of Western Australia. This report provides details of the soil-landscapes, land capability and land management units for the Dinner Hill focus area. We reviewed existing soil-landscape mapping for the area and found that it needed only minor refinement for this study. We also dug and described an additional 117 soil sites in the focus area and sampled nine of these for laboratory analyses. Two-thirds of the soils of the Dinner Hill focus area are deep sands, usually yellow or red. Ironstone gravelly soils are also common. Because of the sandy nature of the soils, wind erosion is a widespread land management constraint for the Dinner Hill area and ongoing investment is required to manage this, especially for annual horticulture. Water erosion on steeper slopes is also a management constraint. Our analysis showed that if wind erosion risk is managed, most of the soils in the focus area have fair to high capability for annual and perennial horticulture. Therefore, the limiting biophysical factor for expanding irrigated agriculture in this area is water availability. This report includes: • descriptions of geology, geomorphology and the soils • an outline of the capability of the soil and land for irrigated horticulture • identification and characterisation of land management units (LMUs)

Subsoil contraints and their management: Overview from five years of R&D

Subsoil constraints cost the grains industry more than $1.6b in lost production each year. Diagnosing and mapping subsoil constraints (SSC) was achieved at a shire scale using the DPIRD soils database and historic surveys

Stand-alone vacuum cell for compact ultracold quantum technologies

Compact vacuum systems are key enabling components for cold atom technologies, facilitating extremely accurate sensing applications. There has been important progress toward a truly portable compact vacuum system; however, size, weight, and power consumption can be prohibitively large, optical access may be limited, and active pumping is often required. Here, we present a centiliter-scale ceramic vacuum chamber with He-impermeable viewports and an integrated diffractive optic, enabling robust laser cooling with light from a single polarization-maintaining fiber. A cold atom demonstrator based on the vacuum cell delivers 10 7 laser-cooled 87Rb atoms per second, using minimal electrical power. With continuous Rb gas emission, active pumping yields a 17 day time constant. A vacuum cell, with no Rb dispensing and only passive pumping, has currently kept a similar pressure for more than 500 days. The passive-pumping vacuum lifetime is several years, which is estimated from short-term He throughput with many foreseeable improvements. This technology enables wide-ranging mobilization of ultracold quantum metrology