The Fence Post (Issue 3)
This week: A last-minute purchase in outback Queensland. A contaminant quietly building up in farming soils, and a look on the history of the domestication and traits of wheat.
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1 | The purchase of Australia’s only domestic producer of MAP and DAP fertilisers
Phosphate Hill in north-west Queensland is Australia’s only site producing di-ammonium and mono-ammonium phosphate, forms of phosphate fertiliser Australian broadacre farmers depend on most. Without a buyer by March, the operation was closing for good.
Recently, Brisbane-based Mayfair Australia Corporation stepped in. The nominal purchase price was $1, with up to $100 million more depending on how the plant performs under new management. Around 540 jobs are secured for now, and Dyno Nobel will hand over approximately $80 million in inventory to keep things running.
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2 | The Invisible Chemicals Building Up in Farm Soils
A new international review in Plants, People, Planet has pulled together a concerning body of evidence about what’s accumulating in agricultural soils largely unnoticed.
Pharmaceuticals, microplastics, nanomaterials, and PFAS “forever chemicals” are moving through soils and into crop tissues, and many remain biologically active even at very low concentrations, quietly affecting plant hormones, soil microbes, and nutrient cycling.
Many of these contaminants arrive through the very practices meant to make farming more sustainable, including wastewater irrigation, biosolids, and manure applications.
The review, led by the University of Leeds, calls for better monitoring and updated food safety frameworks as a starting point.
Read more: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp3.70158
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3 | The Evolution and selected traits of wheat
A new paper in Current Biology from the University of Sheffield traces the domestication of wheat and traits that has been selected for.
When humans began domesticating and planting wheat in organised fields, the varieties that could outcompete others for light and space quickly took over. Thus, domesticated wheat developed larger leaves, more upright growth, and an ability to keep growing even when crowded out.
Modern farming however, requires crops to behave otherwise where packing crops tightly for maximum yield prioritises plants that cooperate rather than compete. Scientists have since spent generations selecting for shorter stems and smaller leaves, redirecting the plant’s energy away from outcompeting for resources into producing grains instead.
Read more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/04/260407193923.htm
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For any enquires and feedback, email us at smartfertiliser-hub@unimelb.edu.au
