Skyspec Regen Ag
Biome Driven Agriculture
Liverpool Plains Soil Health & Biome Checklist
Your Soil Has a Story — Now We Can Finally Read It
Reduce input waste.
Unlock soil potential tailored to your paddocks.
Improve nitrogen efficiency, crop resilience, and long-term productivity.
Reading the Soil: A New Approach to Boosting Productivity and Maximising Input Efficiency
New tools are transforming how we manage soil and crop efficiency across the Liverpool Plains.
With BeCrop® DNA sequencing and AI-powered analysis, we can now “read the soil” — not just its chemistry, but its living biology and how it functions. This gives us clarity on how nutrients like nitrogen move through your specific soil profile, where losses are most likely, and how to intervene before those losses impact yield or profitability. Instead of relying on assumptions or trial and error, we now have science-backed insight into processes like nitrogen mineralisation, microbial phosphorus release, and organic matter cycling — all tailored to your paddocks. It’s a powerful shift: one that helps growers reduce input waste, build soil function, and maximise return on investment in every season.
What is this checklist?
This checklist is a practical tool for growers on the Liverpool Plains to assess and improve soil health across the region’s diverse cropping systems.
It brings together:
✅ Best-practice soil management tailored to common paddock conditions and constraints
✅ Agronomic actions like pH correction, organic matter strategies, and subsoil structure improvements
✅ BeCrop® insights into microbial functions — from nitrogen cycling and root-zone health to stubble breakdown and biological buffering
Each soil type — from red Chromosols to heavy black Vertosols — presents its own challenges and opportunities. This checklist helps you match the right strategies to the right paddocks, improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), reduce input losses, and build long-term productivity into your rotation.
🧬 BeCrop® Biome Focus by Crop
1️⃣ Cotton
🦠 Biome Notes:
Grown on heavy black Vertosols with high clay content and water-holding capacity.
Soils often alkaline, prone to surface crusting, and slow organic matter turnover.
Fungal diversity often low due to historical tillage and fallows.
🧪 BeCrop® Focus:
Boost microbial carbon processing (OM decomposition)
Improve mycorrhizal association for phosphorus uptake
Assess denitrifier presence to manage N loss in irrigated systems
✅ Practices:
Controlled-traffic farming to reduce compaction
Legume cover cropping (e.g. lablab) in fallows
Deep organic matter inputs (compost, stubble retention)
Use biologicals to enhance phosphorus mobilisation
Targeted gypsum or soft lime to manage surface sealing
2️⃣ Grains (Wheat, Barley, Sorghum)
🦠 Biome Notes:
Soils vary: red Chromosols on slopes, Vertosols in basins.
Rotation frequency and fallow chemistry reduce microbial complexity.
Pathogen build-up (e.g. Fusarium) can occur in tight rotations.
🧪 BeCrop® Focus:
Functional diversity in disease suppression
Fungal:bacterial ratios (particularly in stubble breakdown)
N cycling efficiency — mineralisers and nitrifiers
✅ Practices:
Multi-species covers to rebuild biome between crops
Target stubble inoculants (e.g. fungal consortia) post-harvest
BeCrop® benchmarking to time N inputs to biological release
Consider biological seed coatings to improve rhizosphere health
3️⃣ Pulses (Chickpeas, Mungbeans, Faba Beans)
🦠 Biome Notes:
Often grown in rotation with wheat and cotton — soils can be depleted.
N-fixing ability depends heavily on rhizobia presence and pH balance.
Waterlogging risk reduces microbial efficiency in wet years.
🧪 BeCrop® Focus:
Rhizobial health and nodulation function
Anaerobic stress microbes
Organic matter breakdown
✅ Practices:
Apply rhizobia inoculants + compatible microbial consortia
Monitor water infiltration and improve drainage in marginal blocks
Pre-crop soil biology profiling to inform nodulation success
Use of pulse stubble to feed carbon-hungry fungi in following crop
