Jake Ryan is part of a family farming business, Three Ryans Farm at Manjimup WA where they grow brassica vegetables, run merino ewes, cattle and grow pasture seeds. Jake makes liquid fertilisers on farm for foliar applications on vegetable crops and pastures and uses soil testing, brix testing and plant sap testing to guide decisions regarding these applications.

Monitoring has been used to guide the transition to incorporating mixed species cover crops, holistic grazing, and making their own foliar fertilisers.

What we will cover:
How Jake got started monitoring
What Jake monitors through the year and how he uses this information (soil tests, plant sap analysis, brix testing)
The difference between leaf tissue testing and plant sap testing, why sap testing is working well for them.
The benefits monitoring provides their business

Soils for Life's Soil is launching its Soil, plant and landscape health monitoring guide late September to get farmers started with monitoring practices. Leading up to that launch we’ve invited some speakers to share their experiences and the benefits that are gained through paying attention in a more deliberate way, capturing what you see and letting the land (and the data) tell you what’s working.

This webinar is supported by the James N Kirby Foundation

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Gillian Sanbrook has been monitoring soil and landscape health at Bibbaringa since she purchased the 927ha cattle farming property in 2007. Gillian will discuss how she got started monitoring, and the benefits she has experienced from monitoring, including the changes she has seen in her farm landscape as a result.
David Hardwick is an agroecologist with extensive experience in supporting farmers to undertake soil monitoring.


Gill and David will share their tips for:
Getting started with monitoring soil and landscape health
Tracking changes over time
Committing to a regular monitoring practice.
Soils for Life's Soil is launching its Soil, plant and landscape health monitoring guide late September to get farmers started with monitoring practices. Leading up to that launch we’ve invited some speakers to share their experiences and the benefits that are gained through paying attention in a more deliberate way, capturing what you see and letting the land (and the data) tell you what’s working.
Gillian is a featured farmer in the guide, and you will be able to read and watch more about her monitoring practices, observations and the benefits she has observed.

This webinar is supported by the James N Kirby Foundation.

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This video is private.

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Famers Myles and Julie Ballentine share simple soil and plant testing and monitoring methods that they implement on their farm near Banana QLD. They also share the benefits of soil and plant monitoring for them, and how the insights from monitoring help with their descision making.

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More than 100 farmers and others joined our second ‘Tracking Soil Health’ webinar in June 2025 with renowned agroecologist and coach Nicole Masters from Integrity Soils and the Vidacycle team.

Nicole discussed the soils and observations of three cropping farms from across Australia using the Soilmentor app and its regenerative indicators.

This webinar is part of our Cropping Resilience project where we have funding for Australian grain growers to use the Soilmentor app. Soilmentor is a tool that can help farmers to identify simple yet powerful indicators of soil health and biodiversity, monitor progress over time and make informed decisions.

Nicole Masters has 20+ years experience in regenerative farming systems, practices, coaching and community-building across Australasia, North America, and the United Kingdom. She is the author of For the Love of Soil which equips producers with knowledge, skills, and insights to regenerate ecosystem health and grow farm profits.

This was delivered as part of Soils For Life's Cropping Resilience project, partly funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund

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Hear more about monitoring your soil after implementing multispeices cropping farmer Grant Sims.

Multispecies cropping can be an effective tool to start building your soil health and potentially reap financial benefits too.

Implementing multispecies cropping can; build soil biology, improve nutrient cycling, restore soil structure, build resilience and boost productivity and financial gains.

This Multispeice Cropping Practice Guide covers the benefits of this practice, decisions on what seeds to use, application methods, complementary practices and what to look for to know if your multispecies crops are working. Like all practices, it must be considered in the unique context of each farm.

The guide is part of a series of practice guides that can be used in your regenerative cropping toolset. Find the series here: https://soilsforlife.org.au/cropping-resilience/#resources

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More than 90 farmers and others joined our ‘Tracking Soil Health’ webinar today with renowned agroecologist and coach Nicole Masters from Integrity Soils and the Vidacycle team!

Nicole discussed the soils and observations of three cropping farms from across Australia using the Soilmentor app and its regenerative indicators.

Nicole dug into the soils of three Australian grain growers to look at how they can improve their soil health. And discussed three soil health indicators (infiltration, rhizosheath score and rooting depth) using the Soilmentor app to understand how their soils are faring.

We know that tracking soil health is really important for farmers to understand whether their management decisions are moving their farm in the direction they want.

This webinar is part of our Cropping Resilience project where we have funding for Australian grain growers to use the Soilmentor app. Soilmentor is a tool that can help farmers to identify simple yet powerful indicators of soil health and biodiversity, monitor progress over time and make informed decisions.

Nicole Masters has 20+ years experience in regenerative farming systems, practices, coaching and community-building across Australasia, North America, and the United Kingdom. She is the author of For the Love of Soil which equips producers with knowledge, skills, and insights to regenerate ecosystem health and grow farm profits.

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Participants in the Soil Health Challenge share their results with Soils for Life agroecologist Sarah Fea and David Hardwick from Soil Land Food.

Find out more about the Soil Health Challenge at soilsforlife.org.au/soil-health-challenge.

You can:
1. Join the Soil Health Challenge here: https://soilsforlife.org.au/soil-health-challenge/
2. Join the Facebook group to discuss your results!
3. Share the challenge with farmer's you think would be interested

0:00 Introduction and experiences of the Challenge
9:20 Explaining what soil structure is
10:38 The soil infiltration test
12:17 How dry or wet conditions, and ground cover affect infiltration testing
15:52 What is ‘aggregate stability’?
18:15 How to interpret aggregate stability: Slaking and dispersion
21:50 Participants sharing results, Q&A
22:15 Why is aggregate stability worse at depth?
28:10 Why were my results in remnant scrub so ‘bad’ compared to cleared paddocks?
34:45 Why are my infiltration rates faster in the first 6 minutes than the second 6 minutes?
38:04 How can I diagnose compaction v hydrophobic soils from the results?
49:00 How and when can a penetrometer be used to help diagnose compaction?
55:05 Soil organism invertebrate diversity
1:01:43 Wrap up the webinar

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How to do the five easy soil health assessments.

David Hardwick from Soil Land Food walks us through how to do the five assessments laid out in the Soil Health Challenge. James Diack and Courtney Young from Soils for Life also give us more information about the challenge.

You can:
1. Join the Soil Health Challenge here: https://soilsforlife.org.au/soil-health-challenge/
2. Join the Facebook group to discuss your results!
3. Share the challenge with farmer's you think would be interested

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