Professor Daniel Murphy, from Murdoch University, travelled to the United Kingdom last month to collaborate with Dr Emily Cooledge and fellow soil scientists within Professor Davey Jones’ laboratory at Bangor University, Wales, as part of the SW WA Hub’s Transformational SMART SPRAYS project.
The partnership with this laboratory, renowned for its research on soil and plastics, provided an ideal setting to study the fate of bioplastic films in agricultural soils.
The team’s research focused on understanding how bioplastic films interact with soil particles, specifically investigating how they attach and contribute to water shedding. These features are crucial to ensuring SMART SPRAYS remain on mounds, enabling efficient water runoff into furrows.
The findings from this collaboration are expected to inform practical applications, supporting improved water management in agricultural systems.
This project is supported by the South-West WA Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub, through funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund, Murdoch University and the WA Agricultural Research Collaboration
