Subsoil manuring is an example of an effective process used to incorporate animal wastes such as bulk poultry litter or crop stubbles:
- Example of use of subsoil manuring in south west Victoria (Ballan):
- Large areas of land in the south west and the south east of Australia have dense clay subsoils
- Trials compared the following methods to improve grain yields:
- burying high rates of organic material at depth in the subsoil
- the current 'best-practice' for sodic subsoils at the time, involving deep ripping and incorporating high rates of gypsum
- incorporating N and P fertilizer at depth
- comparing the effects on paddocks with and without a history of 4 years of grazing lucerne, thinking that the deep tap roots would create plenty of air space in the subsoil
- The treatments were set up in April 2005, and then the sites were managed along with the rest of the paddock, which was cropped to a red wheat in 2005 and 2006, and to canola in 2007
- The results, where high rates (20 t/ha) of organic materials were incorporated at the depth of 30-40 cm in twin rip-lines 80 cm apart, on raised beds, were particularly effective. This approach has now led to the development of a new practice that we have termed 'subsoil manuring'
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