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Land Water and Wool

The Land Water & Wool program.

About Us

With $20 million invested over five years, Land, Water & Wool was the wool industry’s most significant investment ever in natural resource management research and development. It was an initiative of Australian Wool Innovation Limited (AWI) in partnership with Land & Water Australia.

Land Water and Wool Research

Land, Water & Wool comprised seven major areas of research and development based around the major issues facing sustainable wool production: benchmarking salinity Rivers and water native vegetation climate variability pastoral country prediction and innovation Projects (more)...

Land Water and Wool Case Study: Melissa Rebbeck, SARDI

Understanding risk in a changing climate

Farming in the first decade of the 21st century in Australia is as challenging now as it was 100 years ago, but the grab-bag of tools that help farmers manage for drought and flood is growing. South Australian wool, wheat and barley growers Susan and Ben Carn are making the most of these tools. They farm 8000 hectares running 4000 to 5000 sheep in a low rainfall area at Quorn, north of the infamous Goyder’s Line of Rainfall, the demarcation established in 1865 above which anything (more)...

Land Water and Wool Case Study: Brendan Lunney, Yass

Wool producer shores up land to shore up profits

Brendon Lunney remembers reading as a schoolboy about how water was washing away Australia’s farmland. He grew up, studied arts and seemed bound for other things when, at the age of 27, he bought a farm. Now, three decades later, the reality of his early school learning and the devastation wrought by water washing through eroding gullies have become all too apparent. Measurements logged by scientists funded by the Land, Water and Wool program on his farm “Bogolara”, near (more)...

Land Water and Wool Case Study: Rick Robertson, Bairnsdale

Saltbush a saviour by the sea

An East Gippsland farm three kilometers inland from the coast isn’t a place one would normally expect to find a paddock of Old Man saltbush, but that doesn’t worry Rick Robertson. Rick is just pleased to have found the solution to a perennial shortage of summer and autumn feed for his 7000 Merino sheep. Eight years of tough seasons meant things had to change on the 1000 hectare fine wool Merino stud, ‘Gracemere’, that Rick and Jenny Robertson and their three daughters (more)...

Land Water and Wool Case Studies: Chris Walton, Yealering

Salt trial reaps rewards in Great Southern

FOR 25 years, Chris Walton has tried almost everything to control salinity on his Yealering farm in WA’s Upper Great Southern region. He reached a critical point in the mid-1990s when, alarmed by the worsening problem, he spent $100,000 in three years on salinity. “I reckon about a third of it was wrong,” Mr Walton said. “We have to find better solutions that are accurate because no-one can (more)...

A summary, in poster form, of all the 70 SGSL Producer sites in Western Australia

SGSL Producer Network WA

Sustainable Grazing on Saline Lands (SGSL) Producer Network was set up to help livestock producers better understand and manage their saline land through a range of activities. This book contains a complete summary, in poster form, of all 70 SGSL grower trials in WA. T hese posters were prepared and presented at the 2004 SGSL spring field days and represent each of the (more)...

Does grazing perennial pastures on saline land affect farm salt and water balances?

SGSL Salt and Water Movement Theme

This document presents the key findings of the Salt and Water Movement Theme of the Sustainable Grazing on Saline Land (SGSL) program, funded by Land Water and Wool, Land and Water Australia, Australian Wool Innovations Ltd., CSIRO, and the CRC for Plant Based Management of Saline Land. The material is based on the ain results of the experiments conducted at five sites within the SGSL program, but (more)...

What to plant where: Effectively positioning plants in saline/waterlogged landscapes

SGSL Pasture Theme Final Report

This review considers the issue of targeting plants to saline landscapes. A range of recent research has shown that saltland varies in its ability to support plant growth: economic gain is achieved by focusing revegetation into areas of highest capability. The review focuses on two factors that affect capability – salinity and water-logging. Both salinity and water-logging are highly temporally and spatially variable. Plant ecological zonation on saltland is a reflection of the ability of plants (more)...