Stimulating conversations about soil

FOOD FOR THOUGHT conference speaker profile: Keiran Knight

• Merah North, NSW
• Broadacre biological farming with husband John and three daughters
• Agronomist for Best Farming Systems Australia

Growing up on an irrigation, cotton, sheep, cattle and cereal farm in the Merah North district, Keiran Knight had her sights set on a corporate career and her first job was in a Sydney high rise.

She soon developed cabin fever being confined in an office all day. With her country origin calling her, she enrolled in an agricultural degree and couldn’t wait to get back out on the wide open plains.

She went into agronomy as a resale agronomist for a large chemical company. Every day was different and she loved the opportunity to interact with farmers, visit different farms and see how they were run.

With a story that reads like a novel, she married her neighbour John and they lovingly restored the homestead and gardens on his property, built in 1891, where they settled to continue as the fifth generation on their farms.

Knock-on effects

Once she started looking into soil health she became more aware of how chemical inputs impacted the soil, along with the knock-on effects on the farm business and farmer health.

Her concerns about the risks of chemical exposure grew when she was pregnant with her first child, and Keiran decided not to return to such a chemistry-heavy sector of the industry once she became a mother.

In 2013 a friend of John’s told him about a liquid that mixed with herbicide and increased soil health, and he gave them a drum to try out. It was a bio-stimulant, which at the time was referred to as a soil ameliorant.

“In 2013 the word bio-stimulant didn’t even exist but within about five minutes of hearing about what it could do, we were keen to try it on our farm.”

It was a drought year and the bio-stimulant initially went onto a wheat crop which ended up failing through a lack of rain and deep soil moisture.

“We grazed that paddock down to bare soil with cattle and the following March we had rain,” she says.

“We were thinking by then that there’s no way this product was still hanging around but half the paddock where it had been applied was holding its moisture so we sowed barley.

“We had to wait for more rain to sow the other half, and by then the half with the bio-stimulant was up and established.”

The end result? That half of the paddock was better quality grain and went malt with close to 12% protein.

“This was something we had never achieved before, and we ended up with $69/ha more on the half of the paddock where the bio-stimulant was applied. This meant we got the $25 a hectare we spent on bio-stimulant back quickly plus an extra $44/ha profit.”

New direction

This led to a change in direction for Keiran’s agronomy career, and she began to work as an agronomist for Best Farming Systems Australia.

“After experiencing the results for ourselves, I had confidence as a farmer and agronomist to use the bio-stimulant and its supporting products and to recommend it to others. I wouldn’t advocate something if I didn’t think it would be of benefit to someone’s farming system.”

Back in 2013-2014, information about biological products and how they worked was limited and clunky. Keiran met Dr Christine Jones, internationally renowned groundcover and soil ecologist, and invited local farmers to an event in their garden to hear her speak.

“Christine gave us such a fantastic introduction to soil biology and although a few farmers were shaking their heads, quite a few others took it on board and started making changes. It’s great to see those farmers go to the next level and beyond that into more sustainable practices, and to see their farm businesses grow.

“We are working with native microbes and producing healthy, resilient crops without spending money on rescue chemistry or excessive amounts of fertiliser.

“It’s like an electrical system. The plant leaves are your solar panels, the soil is the battery, and the microbes are charging the battery. If you don’t have microbes in the soil, they can’t charge the battery. This is when plants totally rely on fertiliser.”

Damage to soil

Keiran’s concerned about the amount of fertiliser conventional agriculture is asking farmers to use, both from an economic and environmental perspective.

“Farmers are getting all this advice and being told it’s evidence-based and scientifically based, but why isn’t anyone talking about the damage synthetic inputs do to our most precious resource?

“The amount of capital farmers in highly industrial agricultural systems put at risk by putting out all that fertiliser up front, hoping it will rain at the right time and that they’ll get a crop, is staggering.”

Keiran is well attuned to growing up in a rural area, and the culture of farming where it’s difficult to step outside the lines.

“There’s all the pub talk around ‘I’ve got this yield and I’ve got that yield’. Some farmers want to just spend it to get it, and that’s everyone’s individual choice which I absolutely respect. But I would like to see more farmers ask more questions about the products they’re using and what those products are doing to their soils as well as the quality of the food and fibre they are producing.”

Soil microbiome

Keiran says the more research she does, the more aware she is of how little focus is given to preserving or helping the soil microbiome.

“I was never taught at university that soil was a living thing, and when I worked for a chemical company, it was never about the soil.

“I was not taught about the crucial role of soil microbiome. There’s a whole workforce under there that is responsible for so many essential processes. Soil is not just something that props plants up.”

Keiran says more questions also need to come from the consumers.

“People need to start asking questions around the nutritional integrity of their food. Such as ‘who grew it, how did they grow it and what is their soil management plan?’”

Keiran sees a world of opportunity for farmers who are looking after their soils and producing more nutrient-dense food, and is excited to be part of VicNoTill’s Food for Thought conference.

“It’s a win-win situation if farmers can find the market for their more sustainably, biologically grown food.

“If they are using less synthetics that’s less volatisation and Co2 released into the atmosphere.

“Their soil microbiome is breaking down any chemical residues in the soil and the food and fibre they are producing is of a higher quality.

“I would really like to see farmers being paid accordingly for producing a nutrient dense, chemical free product while maintaining their soil health and not depleting their organic carbon.”