Media releases

Federation University has been awarded $1.2m of funding from the Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils (Soil CRC) to extend research programs which investigate soil performance metrics and federating soils data with the aim of improving farming yield and productivity.  

The funding will go to two research programs, which are led by Federation University’s Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI) Visualising Australasia’s Soils (VAS), and the review of target values for soil performance indicators. 

Located on Federation’s Mt Helen Campus in Ballarat, CeRDI is a multidisciplinary University Research Centre and a leader in applying digital technologies to bring about transformational change in industry and the public sector.  

Associate Professor Peter Dahlhaus is the Project Leader of the Visualising Australasia’s Soils (VAS) project which will receive $800,000 over two and a half years and aims to provide Soil CRC participants with access to considerable volumes of reliable quality soil data. The funding is for the third phase of the project and will be built on research from the past six years. 

“The aim is to motivate Australasian soil data custodians to make their data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), by providing a range of benefits for research, on-farm decision making and policy development,” Prof. Dahlhaus said. 

Dr Nathan Robinson is the Project Leader of the Review of target values for soil performance indicators and their interdependencies, which will receive $400,000 over two years. 

“The funding will support agriculture industry stakeholders (farmers, advisors, researchers) to participate in the co-designing of approaches to help farmers fulfill the agricultural potential of soils,” Dr Robinson said. 

This program extends on previous research with the aim to ensure reliable storage, sharing and analysis and visualisation for all this soil related data. This means the data can be used for optimising soil for productivity in farming. 

Soil CRC CEO Dr Michael Crawford said Federation University has been a valued partner since their inception in 2017 and is grateful for the significant research into soil data and soil performance indicators. 

“The new projects, led by Federation University will help the Soil CRC continue to deliver the knowledge and tools farmers need to optimise their productivity, yield and profitability, and ensure the long-term sustainability of their businesses,” he said. 

Six other research projects also received funding through the Soil CRC’s latest investment round, which will deliver $4.1 million to new research over the next three years. 

“The new projects build on our vital research into soil data and performance metrics, novel products and technology to increase soil function, and farmer engagement and adoption,” Dr Crawford said. 

More information on this program can be found on the Soil CRC https://soilcrc.com.au/current-projects/ and CeRDI https://www.cerdi.edu.au/ websites.