‘It’s like we’ve just sterilised the country we’ve been working on’

Wimmera farmers affected by the rapid Little Desert bushfire are facing a difficult road to recovering their scorched paddocks.

Agribusiness Consulting Group assessor Marty Colbert and farmer Des Clark, from Nhill. Picture: Rachel Simmonds

The Little Desert fire’s heat and rapid movement means farmers will have a difficult road to recovering their paddocks.

AgriBusiness Consulting Group assessor Marty Colbert said local landholders would need to stabilise their soil and work to restore organic carbon after the fire damaged paddocks neighbouring the Little Desert.

“Normally you’ve got a biome there (in the soil) with little things you could only see under a microscope doing their magical stuff,” he said.

“In a hot burn, all those microbes are dead. It’s like we’ve just sterilised the country we’ve been working on.”

Mr Colbert advises the Clark family, who have land adjacent to the Little Desert National Park. The Clarks destocked their sheep flock to focus solely on cropping in 2023.

The Clark's family farm following the Little Desert National Park fire. Picture: Supplied

“People would regard it as Little Desert sand, only good for sheep. But what we’re doing is working with it and growing 3t/ha barley and 1.5-2t/ha canola on it,” Mr Colbert said.

“What we were really patting ourselves on the back about was the job we were doing conserving the stubble, but now it’s virtually all gone.

“There was nothing here to stop [the fire] from coming through at literally 80 miles an hour.”

The Clark family started with bumper barley stubble in 2022, canola in 2023, and barley last year. About 100ha of stubble burnt in the fire, which left the top soil vulnerable to erosion.

“In this instance we’re really hoping we won’t get much wind. We’ll get movement of the top soil, our gypsum program has been impacted by the heat, but this paddock is down for canola this year,” Mr Colbert said.

“It will take five solid years to get back to where we were, and probably a rough increase of $50 a hectare to what we’re already doing.”

He said the labour possibilities included claying, delving, or slotting in duck manure. If March brought a decent storm, they would possibly scratch in early season barley to assist the top soil.

“Every cent we stick out here gives us a return,” Mr Colbert said.