Soils For Life

Ben Simpson runs Thistlebank, a 22,800 hectare cattle property near Aramac in Central Queensland that has been in his family for five generations. He came to the property from a very different life as a fitter and turner on the Gold Coast and has run it since 2010, joined by his wife Kim in 2014.

A hard drought in the late 2010s meant more money was going out the door than coming in, so Ben went looking for a different approach. In 2022 he did the KLR Marketing and RCS Grazing for Profit courses, followed by RCS’s Next Steps coaching and Executive Link programs. Since then, Ben and Kim have moved from set stocking to cell and rotational grazing. Their minimum ground cover has gone from around 40% to 60% or more, and their benchmark carrying capacity has risen from around 6 to 15–20 stock days per hectare per 100 mm of rain. They now rank in the top 20% of RCS’s profitability benchmarks. Ben has also started working with RCS as a coach and adviser.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How Ben went from the Gold Coast to running Thistlebank, and what made him stay

• Why financial pressure during drought led him to seek out training, starting with marketing and business skills

• Starting small and scaling up, from 16 or 17 mobs down to four mobs of 700 to 1,200 head

• Running intensive cell grazing on 6,000 hectares and a slower rotation across the rest of the property, working with flooding, access and labour constraints

• Planning grazing 12 to 18 months ahead with feed budgets, so that small adjustments made early avoid forced sales later

• Shifting from breeders to trading cattle to match stocking rate to carrying capacity, and to suit the people running the place day to day

• How goats fit into the system, and the paradigm shift of seeing grass grow back under timber

• Why coaching, peer support and a written vision have been central to the change

Ben features as a case study farmer in our Practice Guide: Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration. He was due to host a field day at Thistlebank with Soils for Life and RCS, but recent flooding has put that on hold. Instead, we’ll be running a webinar with Ben and RCS Managing Director Dave McLean. Details on our website.

Links and resources

• Soils for Life Practice Guide: Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration: https://soilsforlife.org.au/practice-guide-grazing-soil-landscape-regeneration/

• Webinar with Ben Simpson and Dave McLean: https://events.humanitix.com/grazing-for-soil-and-landscape-health-field-day-thistlebank 

• RCS: https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/

• RCS Grazing for Profit: https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/farming-grazing-for-profit-programs/

• RCS tools, including FarmEye: https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/tools/

• KLR Marketing: https://klrmarketing.com.au/

• The Long Paddock (Queensland Government ground cover and climate data): https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/

• CarbonLink: https://www.carbonlink.com.au/

More from our grazing series

• From feeding animals to feeding biology, with David and Ruth Read: https://open.spotify.com/episode/21dVEksiDbbDDQTWLrZxGT

• Regenerative grazing and the key insights of Holistic Management, with Brian Wehlburg: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7bWGHbRB332rYcw9bLwt90

This episode was hosted by Eli Court, produced by Jen Sheridan and edited by Chris Wieffering.

We’d love to hear your feedback, questions or ideas for future guests. Get in touch on social media or at [email protected].

Today’s guest Frank Ashwood is a soil ecologist with a side passion for macrophotography - photographing the incredible creatures and organisms living in the soil.

He has an academic background in biology and land restoration to woodland.

He mostly studies the biological diversity and associated functions of forest soils, but three years ago Soils for Life brought Frank Ashwood to Australia to turn his camera to the life in the soil on farms across six regions. The photographs were astounding, and a number of them have now been included in his new book: The World Beneath our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All. 

In today’s chat, we discuss some of the incredible creatures that live in the soil, diving into how each layer of soil differs, and some of the experiences and observations on farms around Australia. 

Links and resources:

• The World Beneath our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All, by Frank Ashwood https://www.frankashwood.com/twbof 

• Frank Ashwood book launch at Fat Pig Farm on 10 October: https://zfszi4-wi.myshopify.com/products/frank-ashwood-book-launch?variant=50520122654964 

• A recap of Frank’s work with Soils for Life, visiting and photographing Australian farms: https://soilsforlife.org.au/frank-ashwood-soil-life-up-close/ 

We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did. If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, we'd love to hear from you - reach out on social media or at [email protected].

Courtney Young farms organic grain with her husband Ian in Rutherglen, Victoria, and is also Soils for Life's Farmer Learning Manager. In this episode, she talks with Eli about building a farming life from scratch, growing healthy soil and grain, and turning wheat into a value-added business.

In this episode

• How Courtney's path into farming began, from her dad's oyster farming on the NSW South Coast, through a disillusioning stint in conservation, to discovering regenerative agriculture
• The economics of getting into farming today, and how Courtney and Ian navigated the challenge of accessing land
• Building soil and crop health on their 100-acre property and the family's 2,000-acre organic farm at Berrigan, including intercropping wheat with clover and improving grazing management
• The decision to start milling their own flour, turning a commodity crop into a paddock-to-plate product with a loyal following among Melbourne bakers
• How Courtney and Ian test new ideas cheaply and quickly, and "fail fast" rather than risk the whole business
• Soils for Life's new Cropping Communities program, an eight-location, on-farm and online initiative helping grain growers and mixed farmers interpret soil and plant health data and turn it into action plans

Find out more

If you're interested in the upcoming Cropping Communities training program for growers and cropping advisors, head to soilsforlife.org.au/cropping-communities/

Get in touch

If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via [email protected].

World Fungus Day is in October and to mark the occasion we spoke with two mycologists - fungi experts - Dr Sapphire McMullan-Fisher and Julie Fielder about this amazing and mostly hidden lifeform.

Sapphire is a lecturer in plant and fungal Ecology at the University of New England and Julie runs consultancy Phytos Environmental in WA, and both are involved with Fungimap, one of Australia’s longest running citizen science organisations. They’ve both also been involved in the recently published book Fungi for Land: A practical guide for land managers, which draws on the work of more than 25 Australian scientists to explain what fungi do in the landscape and how to manage land in ways that support them.

In this conversation we delve into the weird and wonderful world of fungi, from their ancient beginnings almost 400 million years ago as partners to plants, to their incredible and bizarre present day forms. And we discuss how healthy and diverse fungal ecosystems are so deeply interconnected with, and essential for, healthy and resilient soils, plants and people.

Correction: In the intro we say World Fungus Day is on October 2nd. The date actually varies by country, it's marked across the first week or so of October rather than on one fixed day.Mentioned in this episode:

• ​Fungi for Land: A practical guide for land managers - https://fungi4land.com/  
• ​Fun Fungi Ecology - https://www.funfungiecology.com/ 
• ​Fungimap - https://fungimap.org.au/ 
• ​iNaturalist - https://www.inaturalist.org/
• PhD on metarhizium - https://eprints.qut.edu.au/117674/

About the podcast

David and Ruth Read own and manage Woodcote, a 470 hectare beef cattle trading farm located in East Gippsland, Victoria. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• How the Millennium Drought sounded a wake-up call for their farm

• The changes they have made since that time including moving towards higher density grazing, establishment of fencing and water infrastructure to support that

• Shifting to a primarily trading enterprise and refocusing from feeding animals to feeding biology. 

Ruth and David also share their enthusiasm for learning and adapting, and share a wealth of resources for people to tap into as they make their own farm learning journey.

David and Ruth featured as case study farmers in Soils for Life’s recently released Practice Guide: Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration. They are also hosting the third of our national series of field days launching the guide. If you’re interested to see their work in action, and hear more about their farming practices - alongside grazing educator Brian Wehlburg - join us on September 15 for a day of on-farm learning.

If you’re unable to attend that event in-person, we’ll also be running an online webinar on September the 2nd with Rod and Katrina Butler, another of the farming families featured in the grazing guide.

Resources, links and events from the episode

• Soils for Life Practice Guide: Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration: https://soilsforlife.org.au/practice-guide-grazing-soil-landscape-regeneration/ 

• Grazing field day: Strategies to build soil and landscape health, 15 September: https://events.humanitix.com/grazing-for-soil-and-landscape-health-field-day 

• Grazing Webinar: Getting started with grazing for soil and landscape health: https://events.humanitix.com/grazing-for-soil-and-landscape-health-with-rod-and-katrina-butler

• Woodcote Pty Ltd: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057240318507
• Soils for Life’s interview with Grant Williams:⁠https://open.spotify.com/episode/4yQTkVCoaAXNnwPuROxSib?si=rPR1lf6-QkqI_xu3pdL3RQ⁠

Education providers

• RCS Grazing For Profit course: https://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/farming-grazing-for-profit-programs/ 

• Graeme Hand: https://www.handfortheland.com/ 

• Dick Richardson: https://www.naturesequity.com.au/ 

• Jim Elizondo: https://www.rwranching.com/ 

• KLR Marketing: https://klrmarketing.com.au/

• Joel Williams: https://integratedsoils.com/ 

If you have any feedback

If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via [email protected].

Hugh and Katie Finlay manage a 30 hectare farm in Central Victoria, including a commercial stone fruit orchard and fruit tree nursery. The farm also includes a range of small enterprises run by others under the banner of the Harcourt Farming Co-op, including a dairy, market garden, and bush foods plot.

Since 2013, Hugh and Katie also have been educating others in how to grow organic and regenerative fruit through their business, Grow Great Fruit. Perennial horticulture is a fairly new area for me, but this conversation reveals some very familiar themes.

Hugh and Katie focus on the soil above all else, and have seen how taking care of soil biology by adding organic matter, fostering plant diversity, and elimination of all synthetic inputs supports healthy trees that are resilient to pests and disease and require little in the way of pest and disease management.

While many of their strategies are applicable at much larger scale than their now downsized operation, Hugh and Katie are also passionate about the value of smaller scale ... about the value of smaller scale enterprises to not only support resilient agricultural businesses, but also connected and thriving regional communities.

Please enjoy this delightful conversation with Hugh and Katie Finlay. And if you're an orchardist yourself or interested in perennial horticulture, don't forget to check out our website for all the resources and events that we're rolling out through our Orchard Resilience project.

Links and resources

• Grow Great Fruit - https://growgreatfruit.com/

• Harcourt Organic Farming Co-op - https://hofcoop.com.au/about/

• YIMBY Compost - https://www.yimbycompost.com/

Murray Gomm is a regenerative farmer and winemaker based near Albany in Western Australia. With his partner Pamela Lincoln, he runs Oranje Tractor Farm, a small organic vineyard and orchard that’s become known for its focus on soil health, biodiversity and carbon-positive farming.

Since the late 1990s, Murray has transformed a degraded property into a thriving, diverse landscape producing wine, fruit, and olive oil. The farm integrates cover crops, composting, mulching, and biological soil management instead of relying on synthetic fertilisers and chemicals.

Murray is a long-time advocate for working with natural systems and is passionate about sharing the message that healthy soils lead to better produce and stronger communities. He regularly speaks on sustainable tourism, carbon farming, and the intersection of agriculture and ecology.

In our conversation, we talk about the value of having a peer group to learn with rather than operating in a vacuum, the role of cover cropping in building diversity and unlocking crop health, soil and plant health monitoring that have helped Murray grow his best tasting peaches ever, and why he now sees himself as a ‘manager of ecological relationships’.

Links and resources

• Oranje Tractor Wine and farm

• Soils for Life’s Orchard Resilience project

• The Orchard Underground WA program for commercial fruit and nut growers, delivered by Soils for Life and RegenWA

• Murray has also worked with RegenWA as a cover crop demonstration site

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, we'd love to hear from you - reach out on social media or at [email protected].

Emily House began her career as a geologist before an unlikely path led her into ruminant nutrition. After moving to New Zealand, she started working with two vets who wanted to shift from treating livestock disease reactively to preventing it, which meant looking closely at pasture as the major component of the diet. 

Emily brings a background in earth science to her work interpreting pasture and soil analysis for animal health and performance. She was part of the team that developed the DietDecoder™, an online tool that assesses the mineral profile of pasture and flags risks to animal health before they show up as clinical problems.

In this episode, she explains why testing the mineral content of pasture goes further than the more familiar measures of dry matter, crude protein and energy that many farmers already use. She talks through real examples, from calcium and milk fever at calving, to copper deficiencies caused by excess sulphur and molybdenum in the soil, and how these mineral gaps can affect everything from hoof health to wool quality. We also discuss the range of responses available once a problem is identified, from targeted supplementation through to adjusting fertiliser regimes and building more mineral-dense pasture through species diversity, along with some striking parallels between what we're learning about animal nutrition and human health.

In this episode

• Emily's path from government geologist to ruminant nutrition consultant
• Why pasture mineral testing reveals more than standard dry matter and protein analysis
• How mineral deficiencies and excesses show up in animal health, from milk fever to coat and wool quality
• The DietDecoder™ tool, and how it's used seasonally around key events like calving and mating
• Addressing mineral imbalances through supplementation, fertiliser decisions and pasture diversity
• Parallels between livestock nutrition and the gaps in our understanding of human nutrition

Links and resources

• DietDecoder™ – dietdecoder.nz, including the quote from Dr Pat Poletti referenced in this episode in the FAQ

Register to join our upcoing Dairy Convo where Emily will talk about Pasture Nutrition. Mon 13th July, 12pm AEST, details at the link: https://events.humanitix.com/dairy-convos-ask-me-anything-series

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, get in touch on social media or at [email protected]

Brian Wehlburg is one of Australia’s most highly regarded Holistic Management educators and a board member of Holistic Management International and the Australian Holistic Management Cooperative. He has delivered training and consulting to businesses, land managers, families, environmental groups and pastoralists all over Australia, as well as in New Zealand, USA and Zimbabwe. He is also a farmer himself, having experience growing crops in Southern Africa, working  as a pasture and cattle manager in South West Queensland and managing a mixed-species property in New South Wales.

This is one of the longer conversations we’ve featured on the podcast, but it easily could have been twice this length given the depth of Brian ’s well of knowledge and experience. We talk about his perspective on regenerative grazing, about the key insights of Holistic Management, the deeply held paradigms that often prevent people from seeing these insights, the practical steps that he has seen work to help people get started, and the positive life changes that can result when people succeed.

This episode is one of a series of interviews we’re doing with graziers and educators involved in the development of our recently released guide to grazing for soil and landscape regeneration.

Details and registrations for our upcoming grazing field day on 15 July 2026 with Dr Judi Earl at the Curtis family farm in Milmerran Queensland - soilsforlife.org.au/grazing-for-soil-health-field-day-curtis.

Links and resources:

• Brian’s consultancy Inside Outside Management - insideoutsidemgt.com.au 

• Soils for Life’s Guide to Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration - soilsforlife.org.au/practice-guide-grazing-soil-landscape-regeneration 

• More about Holistic Management from the Savory Institute - savory.global

• Andre Voisin - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Voisin 

• Jan Smuts, Holism and Evolution - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism_and_Evolution 

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, we'd love to hear from you - reach out on social media or at [email protected].

Grant Williams is a dairy farmer at Hallora in West Gippsland, Victoria, where he and his wife Leesa run Willora Farms - an almost 600-cow operation across 430 hectares. He has been a generous and engaged contributor to the dairy community for many years, and previously served on the Board and as Chair of GippsDairy.

Despite having been an early adopter of robotic milking, Grant describes himself as cautious about making changes on the farm. Over the past decade, however, he has made a change that many dairy farmers wouldn’t dream of, transitioning the whole farm to multispecies pastures, and in the last four years, cutting out all synthetic fertilisers.

In this episode, Grant describes how he ‘fell into’ multispecies pastures, how his early trials didn’t work out the way he hoped, and how he eventually became confident that he could profitably roll out multispecies across the whole farm.

Links and resources:

• Soikee machine - soilkee.com.au 
• Soils for Life’s dairy resources and activities - soilsforlife.org.au/dairy-resilience-project

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, we'd love to hear from you - reach out on social media or at [email protected].