Loam Video

Steve Nicholson discusses the benefits of carbon and how Loam is assisting with that.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:07 The Enerva aggregation is roughly 4,000 hectares of freehold and leasehold land

00:15 situated 30 kilometres south of Forbes.

00:18 It's a mixture of heavy black earths like these black clays

00:23 right through to some real light red gravelly stuff to the west of us.

00:28 We're a classic mixed farm, so we grow wheat, barley, canola, occasionally legumes.

00:36 We grow lucerne. Perennial pastures run merino, self-replacing flock,

00:41 and opportunistically run cattle.

00:45 Soil carbon is why we wanted to go finally into a proper soil carbon project

00:51 was that we've been trying to build soil carbon here

00:54 ever since we started farming basically 22 years ago.

00:58 And we've been monitoring our organic carbon levels in our soils

01:01 basically every year since then.

01:04 And we know that soil carbon is one of the keystones to increase productivity.

01:10 So healthy soils, everybody knows. Carbon's critical to it.

01:15 So agronomically there's nothing much more we can do.

01:17 Like we do everything that you can do now.

01:20 The concept that Loam has of bringing an endophyte into the system

01:24 which will increase soil carbon is a game changer.

01:28 If that works, if we can increase soil carbon by bringing in another individual product

01:35 that does that, that's what it's all about. That's going to change everything.

01:41 Decided to go with Loam mainly because it's a whole package.

01:46 It takes a lot of the guesswork out of our side of it

01:50 so we can concentrate on running the farm rather than running the carbon project.

01:54 I like that idea. I like the idea that another company comes in,

01:59 has the technology, shows you how to adapt it and use it on your farm.

02:05 The process is fairly easy. It's not really very difficult at all

02:09 because Loam works through it with you, hand in hand.

02:14 It's really a matter of having that little bit of information up front before you start.

02:22 So Loam will come along and tell you the sort of data and stuff that helps do it,

02:26 background data on your paddocks, what you've sown in the past,

02:29 what you're sowing into the future, any soil test results you've got,

02:32 anything that they'll give you the list of sort of things that helps set up the project.

02:38 And you just take it from there. It's just a step-by-step process.

02:42 If we can build soil carbon, we can build profitability.

02:47 And that's the key.

02:49 Good soil carbon, healthy soils, healthy bank accounts.

02:53 So it all works hand in hand.

02:55 [Music plays]