00:13Spring is cherry season when a small army of workers moves among these leafy trees picking
00:20the choicest of fruit. This orchard in the Warby Ranges near Wangaratta in northeast
00:27Victoria is 360 metres above sea level. It gets the necessary winter chill and ample
00:34sunshine in the warmer months to make it an ideal growing location. The goal is to
00:40really be a quality grower, we're not big growers, we're probably classed as a medium
00:44grower but it gives us the ability to have a lot of attention to detail
00:48throughout a growing and packing and marketing process. The best of these
00:54cherries, a five kilo box of Royal Hazels, fetched the top price at the Sydney
01:00Fresh Market charity auction late last year, selling for a record sum a staggering
01:05two hundred and sixty thousand dollars. They won best box of cherries and and which
01:12is no small achievement given the season we've had. This stunning success is not
01:17by accident. Andrew Smith has another army at work, a highly effective silent and
01:23microscopic one beneath the ground. And that's why Grant Kelson is foraging
01:29beneath the cherry trees. Essentially what we're looking for is how many fungi and
01:35bacteria are down there and the system, the Salina system, will give us the ability
01:40to determine whether those bacteria and fungi are in fact beneficial or harmful.
01:44Andrew made contact with us a couple of years ago, could tell there's something not
01:49quite right but couldn't put his finger on it. We brought the genomic soil testing
01:53down and it was among the first ones we did and we're able to identify a severe
01:58fungal to bacterial imbalance. What exactly is metagenomic soil testing? In short it's a
02:06cutting-edge analysis method that uses DNA sequencing to analyze the microbiome, the
02:12unique genetic fingerprint of microscopic soil organisms, such things as bacteria,
02:18fungi and viruses within a soil sample. What's present and in what numbers? For
02:24Andrew it's an illuminating insight into the dark, mysterious depth of his soil.
02:30Traditionally we've been able to soil test and understand what mineralisation is in
02:34the soils and do leaf tests through the growing season and see what the plants
02:38uptaking but the reality is we've got a micro soil biome which is there to try and
02:42help support and work in harmony with the plant and by able to do a DNA test of
02:48actually see what's in our soil it gives us the ability to understand where that
02:52balance is so it gives us a management tool that we can actually use over and
02:57above what we've had in the past.
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