The Assault on Farmland

There is a huge difference between farm practices when looking at my grandparents generation, and the current farming generation. When my grandfather first started out on this farm with his brothers he cleared the bulk of the bush, scrub and trees with a cable blade dozer. It was all about clearing as much as possible to gain as much farmland as possible. (The sad part is, all those huge red gums were burnt as nobody wanted red gum timber when you could have jarrah!) Times change as we grow and learn, as resources diminish and different things become profitable. 

My fathers generation got to farm into cleared land with minimal problems to begin with. However, as time goes by the land obviously begins to show the long term effects of actions like clearing. With the removal of that much vegetation, that was tapping into the water table, comes a rise in that water table. For those of you who live in areas with constant and static water table levels this may be a different idea for you. Our water table fluctuates from winter to summer, with a low rainfall season it can stay low and that can affect our dam water supply quite seriously. There are sections of our farm that are low lying and have bores in them, the bore casing on these is above ground by at least a foot and in winter time the water level pushes up this casing to above ground level. This leaves parts of our farm too wet to crop in winter and with the rising water table comes salt. 

The bare parts in this photo are where the salt in the water table essentially burns any pasture that tries to grow. These are what we call salt scalds and they appear in salty creek lines and low lying areas. There are spots where rock lines beneath the ground stop water flowing and salt scalds can break out around these ridges as well. So clearing trees leads to salt problems which can make previously viable land uncroppable. If the land isn't growing anything, it's also unusable for stock. 

The change in practices is this, we now plant areas of our farm into salt tolerant trees. Sometimes blue gums or sheoaks, this method doesn't cure the salt but it can reduce the effects by pushing the water table down as they 'drink' the water. We also fence off areas of natural vegetation so that new trees can sucker up, thus ensuring those diminishing resources (timber and firewood) are being replenished as well. 

The sheep haven't been in this paddock while it was cropped and there are myriads of little gum trees suckering up. Today's job is to fix the fence around these trees to ensure the trees continue growing and to give us a better chance of halting the salinity problems. 

As times change and knowledge grows the practices we use alter, we adapt to that knowledge. We don't continue to do exactly what we've done for the past 50 years. We innovate, and attempt to make sure the land we farm is being utilised in a sustainable way.