My wonderful farm assistant Dmitry Grishin is doing a study on water in the soil at the Australian National University. To do it, he’s setting up sampling points all over both of the farms and measuring the penetration of rainfall.
Initially we didn’t have any rainfall (horrible dry season), but in the last couple of weeks we’ve begun to have some, so it’s likely he’ll have some real data to work with.
Meanwhile, he’s been helping me get some paddock trees into the dry ground.
Here’s his description of his work:
Title: Examining soil moisture dynamics between exclosures and paddocks
As my supervisor Justin Borevitz says: “Plants don’t sense rain, they sense soil moisture.”
Rainfall is more or less uniform across small areas like a farm, however soil moisture varies significantly. Very few studies have focused on property-scale variations in soil moisture, something that is increasingly pertinent to managers as rainfall becomes more sporadic.
My honours project examines why some areas stay wetter—focusing on two factors: a patch’s ability to absorb rainfall, and how well it retains moisture before it drains or evaporates away.
I aim to quantify and model these two components, especially how they differ across a landscape based on its topology (i.e. in gullies versus ridges) and how ground cover interacts with that topology (i.e. in trampled paddocks versus exclosures with tall grass and trees).
The goal of the project is to provide a modelling framework that gives insights into which areas may be more valuable as ‘moisture banks’ compared to which areas are more resilient to grazing impacts.
The project has potential to support national modelling efforts like TERN/OzWALD and the State of the Environment Report.
As usual, Dmitry is putting great planning and effort into getting his study happening. I’m really keen to see the results. However, at the moment animals are busy chewing some of his extensive wiring.
To be continued …
One Bend In The River 
Fascinating project.
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For some reason my friend Sue McColl was unable to leave a comment, so I’ve added it here:
“Hi Fiona, I was wondering if you also use satellite info over your farm that shows you how much feed you have growing over each 100sq m. This is available free through Cibolab once you give them mapping details of your farm, or through a paid service for much more detailed info each day. It might fit in well with the soil moisture info being collected. I use it on my little farm and it’s invaluable. Sue.”
She also sent me images of her current soil moisture situation, but I can’t add them to the comment section. I did have a go signing up for this, but it was fiddly and I didn’t complete it. I think Dmitry is aware of a lot of satellite information that I’m not.
Maybe I’ll have to do a post just about all the other electronic resources that are available for farmers and conservationists.
After I’ve figured out what they all are…
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