Keeping carbon – ensuring soil carbon gains through improved grazing management persist through drought in Australia's tropical and semi-arid grasslands

Overview

Drought is the biggest barrier to sequestering soil organic carbon (SOC) in soils over the long-term. While options are limited during dry periods, how we manage our pastures prior to drought can influence the resilience of SOC to losses and enhance recovery.

Research activities

The impact of grazing management will be examined through:

• the promotion of deep-rooted vegetation
• the incorporation of legumes.

Rainfall manipulation through rainout shelters will induce drought over established pasture trials.

Novel isotopic ¹³C labelling and soil microbial molecular techniques will allow for the tracing of C through the plant-soil-biotic system.

Work will be conducted on operational cattle properties across southern and central Queensland, working with industry leading regenerative agriculture experts across both large corporate and small family scale enterprises.

Outcomes

This project will build on existing research infrastructure to answer fundamental unknowns of C cycling in northern Australian grasslands. It will greatly improve our mechanistic understanding of how C enters, is stabilised and persists in grassland soils during the wet-dry cycles that typify the northern Australian grasslands, and incorporate these findings into the next generation of soil C models.

Skills and experience

You should:

• have field work experience
• be passionate about positive global change and regenerative agriculture
• preferably hold a drivers license.

Keywords

• soil carbon
• climate change
• regenerative agriculture
• soil microbial process

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.