Soil health toolkit
Knowing your soils handbook and ute guide
The handbook aims to provide comprehensive information for landholders to manage the health of their soils and improve their productivity, resilience and sustainability. It helps land managers and farmers understand their soils, starting with how to assess landscapes, interpret soil characteristics, and access local mapping resources. It also covers soil sampling, nutrient management, soil biology, and maintaining healthy ground cover, alongside practical strategies for addressing constraints like compaction, salinity, acidity and erosion.
This ute guide is a practical, hands-on tool designed to help landholders monitor and improve their soils. By conducting the simple, regular soil tests outlined in the guide, landholders can better understand soil condition, identify constraints, and track improvements over time. The guide emphasises the value of consistent, site-specific testing and provides step-by-step instructions using 3 easy-to-complete cards for recording observations and results. These records support decision-making for more sustainable, profitable land management. It is best used alongside the handbook.
Soil health toolkit workshops
The Northern and Yorke Landscape Board plan to roll out soil health toolkit workshops in March 2026.
These workshops will demonstrate how to use the items in our soil health toolkits to test for: pH, salinity, dispersion, slaking, compaction, water infiltration and more. Following the workshop, participants can borrow our toolkits to undertake testing on their own properties.
Please complete this form to express interest for a workshop near you. We will contact you with workshop details once announced. Alternatively, sign up to our sustainable ag update to stay in the know.
Soil health fact sheets
- Carbonate fizz test
- Groundcover in crops
- Groundcover in pastures
- Legume nodulation
- Penetrometer
- Measuring pH and salinity using a handheld meter