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Hi my name's Michael White.
We farm Stirling Plains in the southwest corner of WA.
Shire of Tambellup about ten kilometres north of the Stirling Ranges.
So Stirling Plains is a two and a half thousand hectare property which is about
66 percent arable, my father started clearing it in 1958 and we grow
wheat, canola, barley, oats, and lupins in a rotation and we run a pure merino flock
of around three and a half thousand grown sheep
and up to two and a half thousand lambs.
So there is a fair percentage of our country that's not arable
it's either saline or very sandy and over the years we've seen the gradual increase in the salinity
for the first probably 30 years we farmed it
and if it took 30 years for it to see that salinity
get to its worst, I think it's going to take another 30 years to see it improve to its best.
Through our different farming techniques
the Lucerne, tall wheat grass, the tree plantings the alley farming and
conservation tillage continuous cropping all those techniques we've seen that
salinity become more controlled.
In the last 20 years we've started to use most of the rainfall that falls on the property
through the different farming techniques
and of course less rainfall also affected that
but our ability to handle the rainfall that we get
at different times a year where
we're stopping the recharge of the saline water table
and that's where we're seeing the major benefits in reduced salinity.
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So we do have three bores permanent bores on the farm Geol bores that give us
an indication of the groundwater and we can measure them from time to time
keep a bit of an idea on what's going on.
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So in around 2000 we were looking at this creek line that was deteriorating quite badly
and our choices were either put a deep drain in or revege it
our option was to reveg because we don't really like deep drains
and with the help of the local Noongar community and Subiaco Rotary Club.
We planted over 20,000 trees through 10 hectares that was farming land and
another 6 hectares that was salt creek and I think the results have been outstanding
and it's aesthetically pleasing just to drive past and see it
looking covered with trees rather than bare open salt,
it's certainly has good a feel-factor there's no doubt about that.
So when we first started with looking at ways of controlling salinity we
were using the W.I.S.A.L.T.S system a bit and then started looking at deep drainage as a lot of people did
but felt that the salt levels in the soil here was so high
that we were only going to shift the problem to somewhere else and that can only
drain into lakes so if everybody started draining that salt water into lakes
we were probably going to fill the lakes with actual salt when it evaporated away
but it was also going to ruin the environment that was there anyway
and the best place in my opinion for that hyper-saline water is
down under the ground rather than shifting it somewhere else and if we can
stop the recharge then it won't be an issue that saltwater.
So in the 90s the AG department were doing a number of trials here
Arjen Ryder was here recording groundwater levels and convinced us
to have a go with lucerne on a paddock and and set up a very in-depth trial
in comparing crop versus lucerne and that opened our eyes to what lucerne could do
as far as reducing the water table. The water table was definitely lowered
dramatically under lucerne and versus crop and the amount of stored moisture in the
soil was reduced as well and the big advantage with lucerne is it responds to
summer rain very well you can see the sheep when you put them in there in the
middle of summer if you've had a bit of summer rain the performance level is huge
they really put on weight really fast and when we did run crossbred lambs it
was a very good exercise to get them on there and round it up they'll put on
condition at score and and weight rapidly.
So I see perennials having a very important role going forward
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