The National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge has awarded $9.8 million in funding to another 5 research projects, in its second and final round.
The Challenge aims to encourage industry and researchers to develop lower-cost, accurate technological solutions for soil organic carbon measurement. The funding supports projects to develop and trial new measurement approaches for a range of Australian agricultural systems.
The successful applicants are:
- Curtin University ($790,599) in partnership with Australian Natural Capital Pty Ltd will develop a technology that integrates hardware, software and modern data analytics to automatically and accurately measure soil core samples minimal reliance on conventional soil analysis.
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ($1 million) in partnership with Carbon Link Operations Pty Ltd, Hone Carbon Pty Ltd and the University of Sydney, will develop an automated system where users can upload local project scale data and intelligently leverage and localise the large CSIRO National visible-near infrared soil spectral library resource.
- CarbonLink Operations Pty Ltd ($1,897,482) will add in-field sensors and modelling capability to its Integrated Landscape Measurement System platform.
- Griffith University ($2.8 million) in partnership with Burdekin Productivity Services Limited, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Earth Fix Australia Pty Ltd, Incitec Pivot Limited, Queensland Regional Natural Resource Management Groups Collective Ltd, Select Carbon Pty Ltd, the Trustee for Brentwood Pastoral Trust and the Trustee for LG & MJ Brimblecombe Trust. The project will develop a system prototype for lower-cost, paddock-by-paddock and accurate soil carbon analysis.
- University of Sydney ($3,322,879) in partnership with Precision Cropping Technologies Pty Ltd and the Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation, will deliver an integrated methodology for estimating soil carbon stock for carbon estimation areas.
These projects will join another 8 research projects that were awarded funding in Round 1 in November 2022.
We will publish soil data from the projects to support further research and testing of soil carbon models.
The National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge is part of the government's commitment to help the agriculture and land sector play its part in Australia's transition to net zero emissions.
