Key soil carbon messages - New DPI Fact Sheet released

Staff at the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) have put together a new Fact Sheet, outlining the ten key messages about soil carbon. The Fact Sheet can be viewed on the DPI website here, or downloaded below.

The top ten messages on soil carbon, as detailed in the Fact Sheet, are:

1. Soil is a significant carbon sink


2. Increasing soil organic matter can improve productivity by improving soil structure, increasing nutrient cycling and encouraging diversity of soil organisms


3. Farm productivity is closely linked to soil functions that depend on decomposition of organic matter


4. To increase the amount of carbon stored in soil, carbon-based inputs need to be greater than the losses. If the balance isn’t right then the amount of carbon in soil is depleted


5. There are different types of organic matter in soil; some decompose quicker than others


6. The mass and forms of carbon in soil depend on soil type, climate, vegetation and land management


7. There are land management options to increase the mass of carbon in soil


8. The mass of carbon in soil is closely related to the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur in soil


9. Many Australian soils have the potential to store a large mass of carbon


10. The current convention for calculating the stock of carbon in soil is in tonnes per hectare, to a depth of 30 centimetres