The second trial on a nearby property was mulched, with the grazier reporting significantly more dry matter present.

Background

This ongoing demonstration aimed to show the effects of stimulating soil biology in grazing land. An indication of potential results had been shown in one of our earlier case studies, where Brent went from 30 steers to 90, tripling his farm’s carrying capacity in just 20 years.

Bio-Booster is a high concentration of soil microbiology containing a wide range of species needed for a healthy soil biology. Liquid Sea Minerals and humic acid were applied to support and stimulate the soil biology. The aim is to speed-up building soil carbon the way nature does it. This method is low cost, can be home-grown in five days and has been tested in soybeans and macadamias with very promising results.

Following a workshop in November 2021, participants then built application equipment, started a worm farm, prepared a Starter, grew the soil biology, and then applied the treatment on 18 February 2022. A microscopic quality check was undertaken, and pasture measuring posts were installed at application.

Treatments

Bio-Booster at 100 L/ha along with Liquid Sea Minerals at 5L/ha and Humic acid at 15 L/ha was applied on two properties on the same day. The owner of the first property treated part of a 2.5 Ha paddock, and the owner of the nearby second property treated a section of a paddock on his place. Treatments were applied behind a ripper. Control areas were also ripped to ensure that any difference in measurements was due to the treatment alone and not to ripping.

The owners of the first property also included seeding a number of pasture species to increase diversity in soil biology and stock-feed. Chicory (Cichorium intybus) was sown in both treated and untreated areas.

Stock were excluded from the paddocks to allow new species to mature and seed.

Observations

7 June 2022

The owners of the first property observed that the grass near ground level was noticeably denser in the treated area compared to the control area.

29 June 2022

140 days after planting Trevor Galletly and the owners of both properties conducted a visual inspection and did leaf refractometer readings of Siratro in the treated and untreated areas at the first property.

Leaf refractometer readings indicate the relative level of plant sugars in the leaf and are a good indicator of the plant’s health and nutritional value. What is poor, average, good or excellent varies between species, but a higher reading is better than a lower one.

Chicory had emerged in treated and control areas. Few of the other sown species had emerged.

At application, the pasture was native species at 5 – 20 cm height. As native grass species vary across the paddock, detailed assessments of growth were made for three species in both control and treated sections.

 Chicory plants in the treated area were generally broader leaved and taller.

One effect of excluding cattle from both treated and control areas was an increase of desirable pasture species favoured by cattle. Continuous grazing gradually leads to the loss of these species.

February 2023

Mulching at the second property, giving at least 20% more mulch.

Comments

The inspections showed that treated areas have more growth than control areas.

Tables for Approximate Relationships between pasture height and Kilograms of Dry Matter/Ha (kgDM/Ha) indicate that a 10 cm height increase can add 3,000 kg of DM/Ha.

To put this into perspective, an average 600Kg cow can require 18 kg Dry Matter per day to thrive and produce milk. Assuming 50% is trampled or spoiled, the extra Dry Matter eaten is 1,500 kg and represents 83 grazing days or 2 and a half months per hectare for a fully grown animal or 5 months for a heifer. The trampled part and larger root system will feed the soil-biology, thus increasing future carbon in the soil with all its benefits.

This treatment can be applied to additional paddocks as planned, which will allow for a slow build-up of stock numbers, which is a major cost.

Indicative Cost of the Treatment

The indicative cost of treatment is approximately $26 per hectare, which includes $6–$8 per hectare for Bio-Booster (based on a 1,000L unit costing $60–$80, enough to treat 10 hectares), and $18 per hectare for 3L of sea minerals and 3L of humic acid. This estimate excludes tractor operating costs and assumes that application equipment is already available on the farm.

Conclusion

The use of Bio-Booster has increased soil biological activity and given increased growth of pasture by improving the soil and increasing carbon levels.

The benefits are very promising, and the costs are minimal.

These results are consistent with findings in other crops.

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The Trial

The trial was conducted near Bundaberg in 2020.

Applications of Liquid Sea Minerals 5 L/ha and Humic Acid 15 L/ha were applied by boom spray soon after emergence and followed by overhead irrigation.

Treated area – 4 beds with 8 rows, equal to 1.25 hectares.

The Sea Minerals supply many nano minerals in small amounts. Generally, these are not used in farming today. The humic acid is soil biology food.

Later in the crop, leaf sugars, as measured by refractometer* showed a 20% increase in treated rows.

Results

There was only a small yield increase, but there was a marked increase in nut size. This gave almost 50% increase in large Jumbo grade, which commands a premium price.

This gave $520/ha increase in returns to the farmer.

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Holes were dug, the trees placed, and they were irrigated and mulched with wood chips — all standard procedure. From there on, they received the same treatment as the rest of the gardens.

In May 2021, two had died, and the others were not doing well, mainly due to wind and soil conditions. Topsoil was basically not present, and the silty loam subsoil was very compact and dense. On 10 May 2021, two of the surviving nine trees were treated with Bio-Booster and some minerals. Nothing else was changed.

On 30 August 2021, 112 days after treatment, they were inspected again. Another three untreated ones had died, and the remaining four were not doing well.

The contrast with the treated ones could not be starker. (The same white board was used in all photos.)

In May, the trees had shown leaf chlorosis and a small amount of growth. This was taken into account in the treatment. The soil into which they were planted showed no crumb structure or softening, which indicates an almost complete lack of soil-biology.

The treatment consisted of:

• Bio-Booster (1l per tree)
• Calcium (10 g/tree of very fine lime)
• Zinc (10 g/tree of zinc sulphate heptahydrate)
• Humic acid (10 ml/tree)
• Sea Minerals (10 ml/tree)

The Bio-Booster and minerals were watered-in with a watering can up to 0.5m around the tree.

112 days after treatment, the treated trees showed two to four times the growth of what they had been and had healthy leaves. Most importantly, the top 10 mm of soil showed crumb structure and more roots. This indicates that the introduced soil-biology had started to function.

The experiment confirms our view that to get healthy trees, we need to increase, balance and feed the soil biology. This requires a much wider range of minerals than has been realised until recently. And where the biology is not present, it can be re-introduced in a much shorter time than is currently believed.

To give a human perspective how fast that can happen, the tree below grew about one metre in 112 days, from being a stunted one about knee-high to what the photo shows.

Summary

• More than double the growth
• No yellow leaf deficiency
• Softening soil.

All that in 112 days and in lifeless, compact subsoil — and after 13 months of no growth whatsoever. It shows the awesome power of Nature when given the right ingredients.

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The soybean yields in the treated areas averaged 9% higher than those in the controls. This equated to an estimated $190 increase in Gross Margin/ha. Effects of better drainage and increase in soil biology were recorded in photographs. Observations indicated a slow spreading of the soil biology into the nearby rows of the untreated area.

Trial Details

The paddocks had grown sugar cane for the previous four years, and soybeans are used as a break-crop. The farm uses trash blanket, minimum till and controlled traffic practices, all part of regenerative agriculture. Controlled-traffic farming uses computers and satellites to steer machinery on designated tracks to minimise compaction.

The Bio-Booster mix was applied pre-planting, on 6 November 2020 on one paddock and on 23 December 2020 on the second paddock. Soybeans were planted on 12 January 2021 following normal practices and rates. The variety was Kuranda. The area had been fertilised with 150 kg/ha GF402 (7N:6P:32K:2S).

Application of Bio-Booster plus humic acid and sea-minerals required one pass-over by a tractor with coulters and equipped with a 1,000-litre pod to hold the mixture. The mixture was applied at low pressure (less than 60psi otherwise the biology may be killed) through pipes behind the coulters into the soil at about 10 cm deep.

Observations

The Bio-Booster mixture was applied to the rows 2 metres apart, where cane had been and would again be grown. These rows were initially easy to pick out due to better growth. After 60 days the rows either side had almost caught up in growth, and after 100 days the next rows started to improve.
Soil biology does not respect our boundaries and spreads when it can.

Following an irrigation of 45 mm of water on 17th February and rainfall, a visual inspection of possible effects of the soil biology was made six hours after the irrigation on 18th February.

As shown above, 6 hours after irrigation, there is free water (light patch) in the photo on the left and none in the photo on the right.

Water present indicates poor soil drainage. Roots require water and oxygen to live and be active. Seeing water in the soil like the Control indicates lack of oxygen. If water logging is short term, say a few hours, it will restrict root function but cause little or no permanent damage. If it is days or weeks, it will kill roots. Lack of oxygen encourages the spread of root diseases like Phytophthora.

A second inspection was made the next day on the 19th of February, 105 days after the first application of Bio-Booster. Both times, 8 holes were dug in the control and 8 in the treated areas.

As shown above after 30 hours after irrigation, once free water has drained, it leaves behind soil with good air that does not stick to the shovel.

Soil-free areas on the shovels in the photos on the left and right above, the bits between the white lines show the depth of soil that is well drained. They show an increase in depth of well-drained soil from 10 to 30 cm. The soil below the 10 cm in left photo is still saturated, tight and too wet. Not shown in the right photo is the crumbly, aerated structure for more than 30 cm. There were signs of very fine crumbles showing that the biology was active. (Too fine to be visible on these photos.)

The leftmost photo taken on 26 April shows samples of weeds with significant soil adhering to roots. This adherence of soil to roots is a good indicator of biological activity in the rhizosphere.

Soil from the treated and control areas was then photographed under a microscope. The middle photo shows grains of sand from the control soil with very clean sand particles. The rightmost shows grains from the treated soil with dark stains and less light being reflected, indicating the presence of humic compounds. The increased soil adhesion to roots and production of humic compounds on the sand grains indicate an increase in soil biological activity and organic carbon.

Yield and Increase in Gross Margin/ha

Yield samples were taken on the 21st of May, 150 days after application of the Bio-Booster. Treated and control were hand-sampled with 8 replications, each 2m of bed, with 2 rows per bed. Samples from treated areas showed a 9.1% yield gain over those from untreated areas.

A 9% increase on 3.5 t/ha yield equates to 0.32 tonnes soybeans. At $750/t this equates to an increase in income of $240/ha. The cost of Bio-Booster mixture was $20/ha and that of application about $30/ha, giving an increase in Gross Margin of $190/ha.

Under good management, the Bio-Booster will not need to be re-introduced in following years.

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Sea minerals are being harvested as a left-over product after winning table salt from seawater. It contains 32 minerals known to be needed, some in minuscule amounts but still vital for some soil organisms. The list of those elements can be found at Known Functions of Sea Minerals

Soil biology is already established in existing orchards, otherwise it would not produce much. But has this biome all it requires for optimum tree health and productivity? To find out, a test was carried out on an Avocado farm in Childers.

The treatment consisted of applying Humic Acid at the rate of 15L/ha and Sea Minerals at the rate of 5L/ha to three rows of the Sheppard variety. The application was by injecting the liquids into the under-tree irrigation. The first application was on 3 October 2018, a second on 29 November and a third on 26 February 2019. The treated rows were in the centre of a field and the rest of the field was the control.

The results were excellent.

The results were excellent.

By 8 May, the soil in the treated area was softer and held more water. This was assessed by feel by two farmworkers and two trained agricultural consultants, who all agreed.

At harvest, the average bin weights in the control rows, each side of the treated rows, was 416 kg. The 10 bins from the 3 treated rows averaged 460 kg, an 11% increase in weight. This indicates more sugars and minerals in the fruit.

Sugars are produced in leaves through photosynthesis. This is the complex process in which plants combine sunlight with water from the soil and carbon from the air into sugars. It needs many minerals to work well.

Leaf sugars were measured with a refractometer¹ on 2nd April and 8th May 2019. On both occasions, the results, measured using Brix² readings, were 10% higher in the treated rows compared with adjacent control rows. Higher Brix readings mean healthier plants and the healthier a plant is, the less attractive it is to insects and the more resistant to diseases.

An increase in sugars also indicates an increase in the minerals that gives fruit its distinctive taste. It means that plants have more sugar to feed the soil biology, so it in turn can increase soil carbon levels and structure and provide more minerals back to the plant in exchange for the sugars. This starts a virtuous upward cycle of improvements.

Increased Gross Margins

Avocados are sold in trays of 5.5 kg, and bigger fruit means more trays. An important test is if extra trays mean more dollars, as well as improving the soil and giving better taste.

Working that out in detail is beyond this article. But a rough calculation suggests that the per hectare extra income from more trays can be $600/ha or more. It means that investing pretty small amount of dollars in biology will pay itself back in one harvest, as was also shown in our trial on improving soybean yield by 9% with Bio-Booster and humic acid.

Farmers do not have to wait years before getting their money back, as is commonly believed. The next harvest will pay for it handsomely.

Worth Doing More Tests?

Is it worth doing more tests of giving the soil-biology what it needs so it can perform better? That is up to the growers.

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