Sandy soils series: The benefits and challenges of sandy soils

We’re kicking off our Sandy Soils podcast series with Dr Stephen Davies (DPIRD) and Dr Therese McBeath (CSIRO), co-conveners of the 2025 Sandy Soils Conference in Perth.

Sandy soils cover more than half of Western Australia, including much of our cropping land. Their importance to food production and land use makes understanding and managing them vital to building climate resilience.

Stephen and Therese share highlights from the conference, where experts from agriculture, mining, and natural resource management came together to drive collaboration and innovation. They also dive into the key challenges shaping sandy soils management in agriculture, from water repellency and compaction to salinity and nutrient leaching, and set the scene for what’s to come in this series.

If you want to understand why sandy soils matter, and what’s being done to make them more productive, this is the perfect place to start.

This episode is brought to you by the South-West WA Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub and is hosted by Dr Mary-Anne Glanzlowe.

• Sustainable Solutions for Sandy Soils, West Midlands - SW WA Hub
• Building better soils from the ground up: insights from the global Sandy Soils Conference - SW WA Hub
• Sandy Soils Global Conference