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Murdoch University to lead national soils education initiative
MURDOCH University will lead a new national soils education initiative designed to make decades of soils research more accessible to growers, advisors, students, and the broader community.
The $7.4 million project, a co-investment by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), will run over the next two and a half years and create tools, educational resources, and learning platforms to help people better understand and manage Australia’s soils.
The initiative will see Murdoch University partner with the University of New England, Adelaide University and The University of Western Australia to bring together soils knowledge from across the country and translate it into practical information that can be used in everyday decision-making.
It builds on the success of SoilsWest, a Murdoch-led collaboration that has spent the past decade working with the Western Australian agricultural industry to help growers understand soils and manage their health and constraints.
Associate Professor Fran Hoyle, Director of SoilsWest and project lead, said the initiative was about making soils knowledge more accessible and ensuring valuable expertise was not lost.
“Soils underpin everything that we do,” Associate Professor Hoyle said.
“We build houses on them, we play football on them, we grow food and fibre on them, and they support the key ecosystem services we rely on. They’re really integral to every aspect of our lives, but we don’t often think about them.
“We’re trying to make soils more front of mind, helping people understand soils and how we maintain this important resource.”
Associate Professor Hoyle said the project would help address a long-recognised gap in soils education by bringing together information that is often difficult to find or spread across multiple sources.
“Some of the soils learning resources have been scattered in terms of where they exist online, physically, or in the brain of a soil scientist who’s about to retire,” she said.
“So part of this project is about capturing that legacy of knowledge, learning from growers and industry what they want and need, and making sure that we present it in a way that growers can use.”
The initiative was announced at the 2026 Dowerin Machinery Field Days, where Murdoch researchers met with growers from across Western Australia to discuss the challenges facing farming communities and identify opportunities for future research.
Murdoch University Pro Vice Chancellor Food Futures Institute Professor Peter Davies said those conversations were vital to ensuring research delivered practical benefits.
“Issues can often change day to day, especially in landscapes like ours,” Professor Davies said.
“Having a chance to actually talk to people who are on the land about what their issues are really helps shape our research. We want to be driven by a farmer pull of information rather than a research push.”
Professor Davies said the project reflected Murdoch University’s commitment to ensuring research makes a real-world impact.
“We’re a translational university, which means we want to make sure our research has an impact and doesn’t just sit in journal articles,” he said.
“We want to distil that science into information that people can actually understand and use.”
GRDC Managing Director Nigel Hart said supporting the next generation of soils knowledge was critical to the industry’s future.
“Strong soils knowledge underpins every successful grain-growing business, but we also know there is a need to build and maintain that expertise across the industry,” Mr Hart said.
“We’ve had analysis which shows that growers who are adopting some of these practices can increase their income by $100 per hectare,” he said.
“This initiative is about helping growers make more informed decisions while also supporting the advisors, agronomists, and future industry professionals who will help drive adoption of soils knowledge for years to come.”
This news article and video were originally published on the Murdoch University website.
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