The all new Australian Soil Classification

An upgraded 3rd Edition of the ASC will be published in 2020. The most significant change will be the incorporation of a new soil Order - the Arenosols (deep sandy soils) improving its relevance to Western Australian soils. Another planned improvement is providing the classification for free in a number of formats – including the web, a downloadable print-ready pdf and an e-publication – all available on the Soil Science Australia website

Soils of the Knox Creek Plain East Kimberley Western Australia and Northern Territory

An assessment of the soils and landforms of approximately 12,000 ha in the Knox Creek Plain in Western Australia and the Northern Territory was conducted in May and June 1994. Seventeen map units were identified and their soils, landform and vegetation characteristics were described. Grey or brown cracking clays predominate on the plain, however variable red or brown soils on the coarser alluvium of remnant levees are common in the south and south-east

Soil groups of Western Australia: a simple guide to the main soils of Western Australia (4th edn)

This publication provides a simple, standardised and easy-to-understand way to recognise the most common soils in Western Australia. It is designed to: 1) Provide a standard way of giving common names to the main soils of the State; 2) Provide a simple method to identify them; 3) Assist with the communication of soils information at a general level

Preliminary soil and groundwater assessment of the Mantinea Development area, East Kimberley, Western Australia

In 2008, the Ord Stage 2 or ‘Ord East Kimberley Expansion Project’ was initiated by the Western Australian Government. The goal of the project was to advance development in the East Kimberley and to bring to market the Weaber Plain (Goomig Farmlands) and Knox Plain. In addition to the existing Ord River Irrigation Area (ORIA) Stage 1 (14 000ha), current Goomig and proposed Knox Plain areas (14 300ha), an estimated 50 000ha of land has potential for irrigation in the region. One of the areas proposed for future development is the Mantinea Development area. It is located on the south bank of the Ord River, 30km from Kununurra. It is north-west of the existing ORIA, which is located on the Ivanhoe and Packsaddle plains, and south-west of the most recent Stage 2 Goomig Farmlands, released in 2012. For the Mantinea Development, the state government is seeking a proponent from the private sector to manage the development process and operate the new farmlands created. The potential development area covers about 9500ha, 430ha of which has been set aside in the Mantinea conservation excision. To support the development process, DAFWA has reviewed relevant soil and water data and undertaken a preliminary assessment of that information. The Mantinea Flat – Carlton Plain area was identified as potentially suitable for irrigated agriculture by the Department of Agriculture and CSIRO as early as 1944, following soil surveys of about 12 000ha in the area. Preliminary soil survey results show that the soils of the proposed development area comprise a mixture of modern alluvial sediments, from fine cracking clays (1500ha, 17%) to sands and loams (6600ha, 73%), and stony soils (800ha, 10%). From this limited data, 4796ha (53%) of the proposed development area has a potentially high capability for irrigated agriculture, 2876ha (32%) is potentially capable but requires further investigation, and 1395ha (15%) of the area has a low capability. Areas assessed as having low capability for irrigated agriculture predominantly have salinity risk, poor drainage, shallow basement or unsuitable soil types

Soil-landscape mapping in south-Western Australia : an overview of methodology and outputs

This report provides an overview of the soil-landscape mapping program for south-Western Australia. It outlines the techniques and standards used in describing the soil-landscape as well as the outputs of the mapping program and their uses

Benchmarking biodiversity: Land resource mapping in the Ord River catchment.

This 2009 report describes the mapping of landform, vegetation and soils undertaken in the Ord River Catchment in the East Kimberley of Western Australia in order to provide a basis for biodiversity benchmarking. The project: • brought together and standardised existing Ord River catchment land resource mapping held by the Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) and Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) in a format compatible with adjoining mapping in the Northern Territory • mapped to land unit level an additional 4400 sq km of the Ord River catchment. • re-digitised 2200 sq km of vegetation mapping previously not accurately displayed in a Geographical Information System with other land resource data. • utilised and built on existing DAFWA database systems to ensure post project security of data and mapping and that this information would remain accessible to land managers, government agencies, and other interested parties to inform further work. The report concentrates on how the mapping and information was prepared rather than presenting the detailed mapping and descriptions that are now available on-line. An accompanying map shows boundaries of the new and existing land unit mapping across the catchment, while the report contains interpretive vegetation mapping of the Lower Ord RAMSAR site and landform mapping of the central Ord Catchment

A simple guide for describing soils

Soils are enormously diverse and can be very confusing to understand and talk about. This simple guide for describing soils helps to identify the most important parts of a soil profile and provide an easy way to understand and explain what you see. It gives you a step-by-step guide of what soil properties to describe and how to describe them, along with the tools to make basic soil classifications. The soil descriptors help you to identify the soil type and aid in assigning a simple and standardised name to the soil. While this guide is designed to link with a simple classification system already in use for Western Australia — the Soil Groups of Western Australia — the soil description standards used here are applicable everywhere. This guide is suitable for anyone who is interested in understanding the basics of soil morphology, characteristics and description. Experts in other scientific fields, industry consultants, students and interested lay readers will also benefit from using this guide as a stepping stone to a more advanced understanding of soil

Nyabing-Kukerin area land resources survey

This report presents the results from soil and landform mapping at a scale of 1:500,000 in the Kukerin, Lake Grace and Nyabing areas of Western Australia. This land resource information has been collected to help improve the decisions made by planners, researchers and land managers. The information can be used at the regional scale, catchment scale and farm level. By improving knowledge of our land resources, more sustainable land uses can be developed within the region. The soil-landscape map of the area covers approximately 515,000 hectares and is included on the accompanying interactive CD-ROM. The map extends from Lake Grace in the north-east through Nyabing to Gnowangerup in the south-west. It includes the towns of Kukerin and Ongerup. The western portion of the survey area falls within the Blackwood River catchment and the eastern portion within the Avon catchment. In the southern portion of the survey area, the Pallinup River drains to the south coast of Western Australia. The Nyabing-Kukerin survey area occurs in the Lake Grace, Narrogin and Katanning advisory districts of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia. Twelve soil-landscape systems have been identified and are represented on the soil-landscape map. Most of these systems have been divided further into subsystems. Descriptions of the main soils, landforms, geology land use and native vegetation of each system are provided on the accompanying CD-ROM. The proportions of main soils and land units occurring within each subsystem are also presented. More than eighty soils are identified in this report with detailed descriptions available on the accompanying CD-ROM. These descriptions include a representative soil profile with chemical and physical analyses where available. The main land management characteristics and the native vegetation are also listed for each soil. The report discusses the soil properties and land degradation hazards associated with each main soil. This gives a broad overview of the capability of the soils. More comprehensive ratings of land qualities, as well as specific land capability assessments and maps are included on the accompanying CD-ROM. Information on land use history, geology and physiography, climate, native vegetation and previous soil surveys are included in the report. These sections provide additional background material about the land resources within the survey area

Crop Updates 2005 - Lupins and Pulses

This session covers sixty five papers from different authors: 1. 2004 LUPIN AND PULSE INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS, Peter White Department of Agriculture 2. BACKGROUND, Peter White Department of Agriculture 2004 REGIONAL ROUNDUP 3. Northern Agricultural Region, Martin Harries, Department of Agriculture 4. Central Agricultural Region, Ian Pritchard, Department of Agriculture 5. Great Southern and Lakes, Rodger Beermier, Department of Agriculture 6. Esperance Port Zone, Mark Seymour, Department of Agriculture, and David Syme, The Grain Pool of WA LUPIN AND PULSE PRODUCTION AGRONOMY AND GENETIC IMPROVEMENT 7. Lupin, Martin Harries, Department of Agriculture 8. Narrow-leafed lupin breeding, Bevan Buirchell, Department of Agriculture 9. Yellow lupin breeding in Western Australia, Kedar Adhikari, Mark Sweetingham and Bevan Buirchell, Department of Agriculture 10. WALAB2000 - First Anthracnose resistant albus lupins, Kedar Adhikari, Bevan Buirchell, MarkSweetingham and Geoff Thomas, Department of Agriculture 11. Improving lupin grain quality and yield through genetic manipulation of key physiological traits, Jon Clements1 and Bevan Buirchell2,1CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 2Department of Agriculture 12. Lupin alkaloids in four Australian species, Shao Fang Wang, Chemistry Centre (WA), CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 13. Improving lupin tolerance to herbicides of metribuzin, isoxaflutole and carfentrazone-ethyl, Ping Si1, Mark Sweetingham12, Bevan Buirchell12, David Bowran2 and Huaan Yang12 , 1CLIMA, The University of Western Australia, 2Department of Agriculture 14. Combined cultural and shielded sprayer herbicide application for weed management, Martin Harries and Mike Baker Department of Agriculture 15. Field testing of lupin seed of various sources with and without post maturity, pre harvest rain for field establishment, Martin Harries, Wayne Parker, Mike Baker, Department of Agriculture 16. Lupin seed rate by wide row spacing, Martin Harries, Bob French, Damien Owen D’arcy, Department of Agriculture 17. How environment influences row spacing response in lupins, Bob French, Department of Agriculture 18. The effect of wider row spacing on lupin architecture, growth and nutrient uptake dynamics, Bill Bowden and Craig Scanlan, Department of Agriculture 19. Fertiliser placement and application rate in wide rows, Martin Harries, Damien Owen D’arcy, Department of Agriculture 20. The pros and cons of cowing lupins in ‘wide’ rows, Wayne Parker, Bob French and Martin Harries, Department of Agriculture 21. Investigation into the influence of row orientation in lupin crops, Jeff Russell1 and Angie Roe2, 1Department of Agriculture, 2Farm Focus Consultants 22. Making the most of Mandelup, Greg Shea and Chris Matthews, Department of Agriculture 23. The effect of wild radish density and lupin cultivars on their competition at Merredin, Shahab Pathan, Abul Hashem and Bob French, Department of Agriculture 24. The potential of pearl lupin (Lupinus mutabilis) for southern Australia, Jon Clements1, Mark Sweetingham2, Bevan Buirchell2, Sofia Sipsas2, Geoff Thomas2, John Quealy1, Roger Jones2, Clive Francis1, Colin Smith2 and Gordon Francis1, 1CLIMA, University of Western Australia 2Department of Agriculture 25. Field pea, Mark Seymour, Department of Agriculture 26. Breeding highlights, Tanveer. Khan and Bob French, Department of Agriculture 27. Variety evaluation, Tanveer Khan, Kerry Regan, Jenny Garlinge and Rod Hunter, Department of Agriculture 28. Large scale field pea variety trials, Martin Harries, Department of Agriculture 29. Kaspa demonstrations, Rodger Beermier, Mark Seymour, Ian Pritchard, Graham Mussell, Department of Agriculture 30. Field pea harvesting demonstration at Merredin, Glen Riethmuller, Greg Shea and Bob French, Department of Agriculture 31. Does Kaspa respond differently to disease, fungicides, time of sowing or seed rate, Mark Seymour, Department of Agriculture 32. Field pea response to foliar Manganese in mallee district, Mark Seymour, Department of Agriculture 33. Kaspa harvesting observations 2004, Mark Seymour, Ian Pritchard, Glen Riethmuller, Department of Agriculture 34. ‘Blackspot Manager’ for understanding blackspot of peas and ascochyta blight management, Moin Salam and Jean Galloway, Department of Agriculture 35. 250,000 ha of field pea in WA – Is it sustainable? Larn McMurray1 and Mark Seymour2, 1South Australian Research and Development Institute, 2Department of Agriculture 36. Desi chickpea, Wayne Parker, Department of Agriculture 37. Breeding highlights, Tanveer Khan1,2 and Kadambot Siddique2,1Department of Agriculture, 2CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 38. Variety evaluation, Tanveer Khan, Kerry Regan, Jenny Garlinge and Rod Hunter, Department of Agriculture 39. Large scale variety testing of desi chickpeas, Martin Harries, Greg Shea, Mike Baker, Dirranie Kirby, Department of Agriculture 40. Desi variety chickpea trial, Martin Harries and Murray Blyth, Department of Agriculture 41. Seeding rates and row spacing of chickpea desi, Martin Harries, MurrayBlyth, Damien Owen D’arcy, Department of Agriculture 42. Molecular characterisation of chickpea wild relatives, Fucheng Shan, Heather Clarke and Kadambot Siddique, CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 43. Plant phosphorus status has a limited influence on the concentration of phosphorus-mobilising carboxylates in the rhizosphere of chickpea, Madeleine Wouterlood, Hans Lambers and Erik Veneklaas, The University of Western Australia 44. Kabuli chickpea, Kerry Regan, Department of Agriculture, and CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 45. ‘Kimberly Large’ A high quality and high yielding new variety for the Ord River Irrigation Area, Kerry Regan1,2, Kadambot Siddique2, Peter White1,2, Peter Smith1 and Gae Plunkett1,1Department of Agriculture, 2CLIMA, University of Western Australia 46. Development of ascochyta resistant and high quality varieties for Australia, Kadambot Siddique1, Kerry Regan1,2, Tim Pope1 and Mike Baker2, 1CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 2Department of Agriculture 47. Towards double haploids in chickpeas and field pea, Janine Croser, Julia Wilson and Kadambot Siddique, CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 48. Crossing chickpea with wild Cicer relatives to introduce resistance to disease and tolerance to environmental stress, Heather Clarke and Kadambot Siddique, CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 49. Faba bean, Peter White, Department of Agriculture 50. Germplasm evaluation, Peter White1,2, Kerry Regan1,2, Tim Pope2, Martin Harries1, Mark Seymour1, Rodger Beermier1 and Leanne Young1, 1Department of Agriculture, 2CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 51. Lentil, Kerry Regan, Department of Agriculture, and CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 52. Variety and germplasm evaluation, Kerry Regan1,2, Tim Pope2, Leanne Young1, Martin Harries1, Murray Blyth1 and Michael Materne3, 1Department of Agriculture, 2CLIMA, University of Western Australia, 3Department of Primary Industries, Victoria 53. Lathyrus species, Kadambot Siddique1, Kerry Regan2, and Colin Hanbury2, 1CLIMA, the University of Western Australia, 2Department of Agricultur