About TopSoils

Top Soils is a multi-partner East Gippsland region project focused on improving soil conditions for farm profitability through farmer-driven focus groups and research sites. The aim of the project is to encourage and support change towards best practices in soil health.

Top Soils 1 was developed in 2013 as a 5-year project and was highly successful, enabling Top Soils 2 (1 July 2018 to 30 June 2023) to continue the project’s good work. The need for the project was determined through the Australian Bureau of Statistics data that showed that sustainable land management practices were not widely adopted in the East Gippsland region.

The first few years saw partner agencies gather soil and plant data across well over 100,000 hectares in East Gippsland to benchmark (then) current soil condition, soil fertility and farming practices. Top Soils 2 will see some of these sites retested to determine change over the ten years of the project.

Following the collation of soil and plant data was the establishment of 5 farmer-driven focus groups, each group based in a separate geographical area across the region; Plains, Foothills, High Country, Far East and Deddick/Bendoc. There was also the development of a number of research and demonstration sites investigating the effects of nutrients and strategic grazing on weed loads in native pasture systems, the effects of nutrients and rotational grazing on weed loads in improved pasture systems and soil requirements, including micro and macro nutrients.