Is that Salt?

After 3 days' training on salination with the Central West Catchment Management Authority, I am seeing salt everywhere on Uamby. The Goolma district was a mass of red spots on the CMA map of salt outbreaks, so we know the district is on the high side. Over the last 2 weeks we have visited several properties further west and southwest, that have salt problems. The scary thing is that I think we have similar symptoms. Scary because salt can take a long time to rectify. And scary because no farmer wants to admit to salt.
Here we are at one of the properties we visited: Bruce, Sam, Colleen, and Tim looking at the pale soil which is where the salt is 'expressing'. The salt-affected area on this property is growing because the farmer is not treating the cause, only the symptom. He's band-aiding the expression zone while continuing to farm around it in the way that caused it in the first place.






I took this shot on the property with the expanding salt area. This, plus the appearance of sea barley and couch grass (salt resistent plants), is an indication of sale.






This shot was taken on Uamby, in the area we call the Lease. The top soil has been scraped away,we thought, by bulldozer activity. But it could be a salt scald. The similarity between this shot and the shots I took on the other property is startling.







And this is another patch, this time in the Hill paddock, just above the stockyards. This area becomes a river when it rains heavily, with water rushing down from the hills and coursing down the driveway past the house.






One piece of evidence that argues against it being a salt outbreak is the health of the trees and the grasses growing near it. If this is a salt scald, we know what we have to do to fix it. Grow more deep-rooted, native perennial grasses in the Hill paddock.