Dean and Tanya Butler farm between Bruce Rock and Merredin in the Belka Valley. Through the Wheatbelt NRM project and others trials conducted on the property, the Butler’s have learnt to better manage land of lower productivity.

Anna and Colin Butcher of Mail Rock Farm in Brookton with the help of Wheatbelt NRM funding have established a 25ha seed nursery paddock of Margurita pink serradella that could be harvested to enable economically viable plantings of serradella across the farm.

Michael and Kezia Metcalf live and work on the family farm in Dowerin. Through funding from Wheatbelt NRM’s Soil Conservation Incentives Program possible project ideas for trialling pasture varieties on the farm to improve the profitability of the sheep enterprise were investigated.

Peter Whitfield found out about the Wheatbelt NRM project via a staff member from the group. “I wanted to try something different on unproductive soil types”, he said. “Years of yield mapping had shown us how bad these soils really are and the funding was a chance to help me improve them”.

Nathan become involved in the Caring for our Country funded project when he saw an advert to apply for wind erosion funding in the Wheatbelt NRM newsletter.

Perennials have several potential benefits to farming systems on unproductive, sandy soils and provide year-round ground cover, protecting the fragile soils from wind erosion events.

The project site forms the lower section of the Bindermucking Gully which feeds directly into the Avon River.

Leon grew up on the family farm east of Cadoux and can remember planting trees each year with his father since he was ten.

Bruce Talbot of Corrigin accepted the opportunity to trial gland clover and serradella on their properties. As a result of being involved in the project, Bruce now has a cleaner paddock as he has been able to manipulate grasses during the annual pasture legume phase.

Angus Cooke is a member of the Southern Brook Landcare Group and found out about Wheatbelt NRM funding for projects aimed at preventing wind erosion through the group’s coordinator at the time.

‘Lynburn’ is a family-run property northeast of Wongan Hills. Colin Lane and his parents Ross and Robin knew of an area on the farm that would benefit from revegetation. The Lane’s found that groundcover and climatic conditions had a significant effect on the survival rates of the seedlings.

Peter Dickinson’s family farm ‘Stoneley’ is situated about 12km directly east of Corrigin.

The Corrigin Farm Improvement Group lead a revegetation project involving three neighbouring farmers in the Corrigin shire in 2010. This project was funded by the Wheatbelt NRM Soil Conservation Incentives Program. The Larke, Hewett and Guinness families all had previous experience planting trees, but had more areas on their farm that needed revegetating.

Corrigin farmer, Dave Crossland, was invited to take part in a project to trial new legumes.

Four Corrigin farming families planted trees on degraded areas of their farms.

The north-eastern Wheatbelt is characterised by vulnerable soils such as Wodjil sands, which can sometimes result in wind erosion.

Water repellency is a common problem many farmers face this problem across some proportion of their farms.

Barry and Beverley Harrap of Koorda had been awaiting an opportunity to assist them in implementing their farm revegetation plans.

Situated low within the landscape of the Corrigin shire is Wilcurra farm.

As a young child Maria lived in the Doodlakine area on the ‘Nambling Brook’ property, owned by an extended family member.