Soil acidification

Product Information

Soil acidity is a major land degradation issue facing much of Australia. It is important to know if it is being managed appropriately to avoid costly losses in production, negative implications for the environment and possibly restricted access to future markets for our agricultural produce.

Different crop species and even different cultivars have a pH range within which they are most comfortable; nutrient deficiencies and toxicities appear as the pH moves outside this range. Many Australian soils have a pH outside this range even in their natural state. The National Land & Water Resources Audit (2001) estimated that 50 million hectares of Australia’s agricultural land are already experiencing impacts from soil acidity in surface layers and a further 23 million hectares in subsurface layers. This markedly affects yields.

Whether at a point, over a region or even nationally, the purpose of monitoring is to establish a baseline pH and observe trends over time with respect to that baseline. Often there will be a target pH and monitoring will measure progress towards that target.

The recommended measures of soil acidification are the:
• baseline pH
• change in pH over time
• estimated time to critical pH
• adoption of liming and other ameliorating land management practices.