Building healthy soils, protecting waterways
For second-generation pineapple grower Col Hawken, farming has always been about more than producing a crop.
“It’s not just the crop, it’s our land. There’s nothing more valuable to us than the land,” Col says.
Growing fresh market pineapples on the Fraser Coast, Col and his wife Megan are trialling practical changes to improve soil health, reduce erosion, and support the long-term sustainability of their farming operation.
Through The Best Practice Fund, an incentive program complementing the Hort360 Great Barrier Reef Best Management Practice (Hort360 GBR BMP) Project, the farm has implemented new practices focused on reducing sediment and nutrient movement from the farm.
The Hawken’s matched grant funding received, purchasing a zero-till planter, enabling the farm to establish cover crops and improve ground cover without relying on traditional cultivation methods.
For Col, reducing exposed soil was a key driver.
“Traditional cultivation meant having all your ground exposed, waiting for a rain event, and hoping it wasn’t too big a rain event to wash it all away,” he says.
“Being a non-irrigated farm, we need to make the most of the moisture we receive.”
The zero-till planter allows the farm to work with existing soil moisture after rainfall, helping improve establishment conditions while reducing the disturbance of the soil.
The farm is now looking at incorporating cover crops into its rotation, including cow pea, to help protect the soil surface and support nutrient cycling.
“Cover crops stop sediment erosion. We’re not losing our topsoil, we’re keeping ground cover there, and it helps hold moisture in the soil,” Col says.
The practice also has potential benefits for nutrient management, with legumes such as cow pea helping to capture nitrogen and reduce reliance on nitrogen inputs.
Water movement across the landscape is another focus. Col also incorporates whoa-boy structures and inter-row plantings, to slow runoff and capture sediment during high rainfall, preventing sediment from going downstream.
“Once you slow that water down, all the siltation traps on the top side of it and then it goes again,” Col says.
“Otherwise, all of that fine silt would end up in the Great Barrier Reef, and that’s not what we want.”
The Hort360 GBR BMP Project is funded through the Queensland Government’s Queensland Reef Water Quality Program. It supports growers to benchmark practices and make improvements to nutrient, sediment, irrigation and pesticide management practices, delivering benefits both on and off farm.
For Col, support provided through the Project helped reduce barriers to trialling a new approach for managing groundcover and reducing loss of topsoil.
“The grant took away a large part of the risk,” he says.
“QFVG supported us all the way through the process. They helped with the things we needed for the application and were genuine about wanting to help.”
Col hopes the changes will deliver improved soil health, more infiltration and better moisture retention, less loss of topsoil, and overall, a more resilient farming system.
“If we can do things the best that we can, that’s best for us, best for the environment, and hopefully best for our hip pocket as well.”
Watch Col’s full story to see how practical changes on-farm are helping protect Reef water quality, improve farm resilience and support the future of Queensland horticulture.
Funded by the Queensland Government’s Queensland Reef Water Quality Program, backed by QFVG and growers.
