Hands-on Bio-fertilisers Workshop

Friday the 16th of August saw Simon Mattsson, from Land Soil Food, run a hands-on Bio-fertilisers workshop that drew attendees from over 300km away.

The workshop allowed attendees to participate in making 3 different bio-ferments –

·         Starter culture – KAB serum based on Kefir milk cultures.

·         Biofert P Plus- uses tech grade fertilisers, various other ingredients and the starter culture.

·         Hydrolysate – uses meat protein, starter culture and molasses.

Throughout the event Simon emphasised that this process is not a silver bullet to improve soil health or grow better crops it is only going to have an effect if it is on top of other actions that improve soil health.

Those other actions can include, but not exclusive to-

·         Multi-species cropping,

·         Companion cropping,

·         Reduced compaction,

·         Reduced tillage.

·         Reduced chemical usage, and

·         Feeding microbes when chemical spraying to reduce the impact, like using fulvic acid when spraying.

Simon emphasised on the day that the quality of the prep will greatly impact the quality of the end product. Shuttles that are well cleaned, inputs that are high quality, good storage and thorough mixing will make all the difference as to whether you end up with a product that does good or does harm.

 The challenge for attendees will be if they can trust their noses with the final product.

On the day they were able to smell and one person even tasted the starter culture to start to get their head around what smells are acceptable and what indicates that they have a failed bio-ferment product. Because the nose knows.

All attendees were given a physical copy of the bio-fermentation manual and have been email a copy after the event, because we all know how hard it is to find paperwork sometimes!

Thank you to Soil Land Food and Simon Mattsson for a very practical workshop.

Thank you to our Field Day supporters the Queensland Governments Natural Resource Recovery Program and our field day partners Bigambul Native Title Aboriginal Corporation. We really appreciate your continued support.