Keeping soil in its place – Improving soil cover and managing drainage

The movement of soil from strawberry farms can result not only in a loss of valuable top soil and available nutrients, but can also cause off-farm environmental impacts, particularly to waterways. One of the main ways soil moves off farm is due to water erosion. Water erosion can occur when heavy rain or excess irrigation flows across exposed soils and/or soils with poor structure in farm blocks and tracks, or is captured without adequate drainage on hard surface areas such as protective cropping structures, packing sheds and buildings. This factsheet provides best practice guidelines for soil management.