Paul did his PhD on soil compaction at the Scottish Institute of Agricultural Engineering then moved to the Agricultural Research Council’s Letcombe Laboratory near Wantage in England, an agricultural research unit which specialised in plant and soil function and management. He helped study water-logging and compaction effects on wheat growth and production at Letcombe, mainly using field experiments and lysimeter units.
When the Thatcher Government cut funding to research in the UK and planned to close the labs, Paul sought work in Australia (1984). He spent five years with the CSIRO division of soils in Canberra, studying macroporosity of irrigated clay and hard setting, which was a great introduction to Australian agriculture, research expertise and soils.
He moved to a permanent and less theoretic employment with the WA Dept. of Agriculture in 1989.
With good access to research funding, skilled technical assistants and collaborative innovative host farmers, much progress to more profitable and less erodible farming methods for water repellent sands were made from 1990 to 1994. Some funding support from 94 to 96 increased the local farming knowledge of techniques to mange hard setting soils better. Then in 1996 – 2002 Paul led a small team demonstrating, testing and promoting Tramline farming/controlled traffic in WA.
From 2005 to 2007 Paul and others were involved in a National Landcare-funded project on how downhill CTF could potentially reduce water erosion problems. They also tried using very wide rows of wheat to reduce drought stress on shallow soils, which produced some good data—however grass weeds often prove to be a big issue with very wide cereal rows.
From 2006 to 2010 Paul ran the initial testing of Biochar in WA and subsequently helped with national and international projects on biochar, as well as a further development in ‘artificial terra pretta’.
In 2010 biochar was deprioritised in DAFWA grains research so Paul continued to work on management of water repellence.
From 2014 to 2016 Paul helped manage a GRDC & DAFWA funded project on better soil compaction management, including CTF and deep ripping. Breakthroughs came in the clear identification of the need for deeper (>350mm) deep ripping on many soils and the possible benefits of ‘topsoil slotting’ to help get beneficial organic matter and top-dressings such as lime, gypsum or manures into the decompacted subsoils. There were also developments of new tools for CTF, such as “CTF Calculator (http://www.ctfcalculator.org/) by Bindi Isbister and James Hagan.
Paul retired from DPIRD in early 2017 but continues with occasional private research activities and support of some local heritage building investigations. He also regularly referees papers submitted to R&D journals and mentors some individuals and companies in WA agriculture.”