Soils in Focus Seminar: Keith

Soils in Focus Seminar: Keith

part of the Soil CRC 

Thursday 5 March 2026
9:00am to 1:00pm

Heritage Street, Keith

Morning tea and lunch provided.

Registrations essential for catering purposes.

Soils in Focus Seminar, Keith

Join leading scientists in soil research to hear the latest soil project outcomes from the Soil Cooperative Research Centre (Soil CRC).

This seminar is for farmers, advisors and researchers and will share practical farmer-facing solutions from recent soil projects.

Presenters and Topics

• Stephen Lang, PhD Student, Adelaide University: 'Addressing physical soil contraints in sandy soils'
• Dr Amanda Schapel, Program Lead for the SA Soils Collaboration Centre, PIRSA - 'Amendments for sandy soils'
• Dr Nigel Wilhelm, Senior Research Scientist, SARDI - 'Overcoming soil constraints in calcareous soils'
• Dr Peter Weir, Research Associate, Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI), Federation University Australia: New app helps farmers view rainfall distribution'.

followed by an interactive Q& A panel session. 

Background

Established under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Program, the Soil CRC was designed as a long-term, industry-led collaboration to move soil science beyond isolated research projects and into practical, scalable solutions that help farmers improve on-farm decision-making for productivity and resilience.

Cost

MFMG Members $25, additional MFMG primary producer members $15 (MFMG Members will need to login to access the reduced additional ticket price)

Non MFMG members $25

Morning tea and light lunch provided.

Registrations essential- www.mackillopgroup.com.au/events

Presenters

Stephen Lang, PhD Student, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, Adelaide University

Stephen Lang is currently undertaking his PhD focusing on re-engineering high strength sandy soils to improve crop production. In many sandy cropping soils, roots are physically restricted to a shallow depth due to a high strength subsurface horizon that impedes access to water and nutrients stored lower in the profile. Stephen's research seeks to uncover the mechanisms responsible for hardsetting in these soils, and explore innovative amelioration strategies to improve rooting depth and access to resources.

Dr Amanda Schapel, Program Lead for the SA Soils Collaboration Centre, PIRSA

A soil specialist with expertise in soil carbon and health, Dr Schapel has decades of experience working across South Australia and now leads the South Australian Soils Collaboration Centre at PIRSA. Her focus is on soil health and carbon, developing practical benchmarks that help farmers understand which soils have the potential to build carbon and which ones need protecting. She's passionate about making soil science useful and usable, ensuring healthy soils mean healthy farms.

Dr Nigel Wilhelm, Senior Research Scientist, SARDI

Dr Wilhelm is a Senior Scientist for SARDI based at the Waite Campus in Adelaide. His special areas of interest are crop nutrition and managing soils for better crop production. Nigel has undertaken crop nutrition and farming systems research in the cropping zone of South Australia for nearly 40 years.

Peter Weir, Research Associate, Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI), Federation University Australia

Dr Peter Weir’s thesis ‘In-paddock variability of plant available water’ involved determining soil moisture content at the paddock level and investigating the spatial variation in rainfall within an area. Based on the initial work done by Peter during his Soil CRC PhD project, the Rainfall Mapper online application was developed by the technical team from the Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI).