McEwan Carbon Project 6

McEwan Carbon Project 6 is an agricultural soil carbon project located approximately 20km northwest of Pinnaroo in the Southern Mallee region of South Australia. It was registered in April 2022 and covers 610.84 hectares.

The project operates under the Estimation of Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration using Measurement and Models (2021) methodology. Soil carbon projects involve changing agricultural management practices to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil. Standard requirements for this method include establishing a baseline carbon level and conducting rigorous laboratory testing or modeling to measure subsequent increases in soil organic carbon over the project's crediting period.

The Southern Mallee area is typically a mixed-farming region, widely used for dryland grain cropping and livestock grazing. The region is classified as semi-arid, experiencing relatively low rainfall that predominantly occurs during the winter months. The soils here are generally fragile and consist mostly of sandy mallee soils, calcareous sandy loams, and shallow brown loams over limestone.

To build soil carbon in this agricultural system, the project undertakes several specific management activities. These include applying nutrients to the land in the form of a synthetic or non-synthetic fertiliser to address material soil deficiencies, converting from intensive tillage to reduced or no-tillage practices, and retaining stubble after crops are harvested. Interestingly, this project is managed by AgriProve Solutions Pty Ltd and operates alongside a broader cluster of sequentially numbered "McEwan Carbon Projects" run by the same proponent in the region.