Thirty-eight local farmers have signed up for the 2021-2022 Soil Testing Program. They join over 200 farmers who have been involved in the long-standing Geographe soil testing program, improving productivity and stopping nearly 5 tonnes of phosphorus entering Geographe Bay each year.

Some of this year's farmers are opting to undertake the soil sampling themselves while others will have the samples taken by contractors, including some of the GeoCatch team. We look forward to supporting all of our soil testing farmers to get the dirt on their soil!

Seven Geographe farm businesses are increasing their knowledge and application of grazing best practice by participating in the Grazer Matcher program.

Grazing Matcher aims to improve productivity and profits for farmers and minimise impacts to the environment by supporting farmers to adopt best practice grazing management across their sheep and beef farms. The program advocates moving stock between a series of paddocks (rotational grazing) in response to pasture growth, allowing a rest period before the first paddock is grazed again. Follow our Facebook page for Grazing Matcher updates.

VIDEO: Dave Carter shared his insights with us after the second Grazing Matcher workshop in Treeton.

An exciting new trial is being undertaken in the Geographe Bay Catchment investigating the effect of phosphorus application timing on pasture productivity and the environment.

The trial will look at four different times and intervals of application throughout the growing season.

Hours of time, money and careful planning by farmers in the Geographe Bay Catchment to upgrade their dairy effluent systems has them on the front foot to manage dairy effluent this winter and into the future.

Ten dairy farmers took up the opportunity for funding incentives to upgrade their systems and have an effluent plan developed through an accredited system designer. The upgrades were a key project of the Revitalising Geographe Waterways program to reduce the amount of nutrients entering waterways and Geographe Bay.  

The first month of winter, June, was second coldest on record and rainfall was 32% below average in Western Australia as a whole (BoM). At the Vasse River site however, rainfall has been higher than average for 2021. It's fair to say it's been cold and wet down this way!

The BoM outlook for July to September indicates that rainfall is likely to be neutral or below average (less than 60% chance of exceeding median rainfall) across the south west.

Get the full picture in the June 2021 Rainfall and Streamflow Summary from DWER.