Soil Carbon in SA: What Builds It, What Loses It, and What You Can Influence

Landscape SA is offering a free series of topic-specific carbon farming webinars, delivered by South Australia’s Landscape Boards alongside trusted external experts.

You are invited to register for the upcoming webinar: Soil Carbon in SA: What Builds It, What Loses It, and What You Can Influence on 25th March 2026, to be delivered via the MS Teams Webinar platform.

Soil carbon is often talked about as a quick win, but the reality in South Australian farming systems is more complex. Soil type, rainfall, history and management all play a major role in how much carbon a soil can hold — and whether that carbon can realistically be increased.

This webinar will unpack the realities of soil carbon in South Australia, including what drives soil organic carbon up or down and where the real opportunities sit across different soil types and rainfall zones. We will explain South Australian soil carbon benchmarks, what they represent, and how growers can use them to understand whether their soils have potential to build carbon or whether the priority should be protecting what is already there.

Producers will leave with a practical understanding of what affects soil carbon in their paddocks, how to interpret benchmarks, and what management actions are likely — or unlikely — to make a difference in SA conditions.

Dr Amanda Schapel is Principal Officer for Soil Action with PIRSA and leads the South Australian Soils Collaboration Centre. With nearly 30 years’ hand-on experience in agricultural soils, she specialises in soil carbon and soil function. Amanda’s benchmarking work helps growers understand where soils have real potential to build carbon — and where carbon needs protecting.

This webinar is delivered with funding support from the Commonwealth of Australia through the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and water under the Carbon Farming Outreach Program.