The Gbiota philosophy grew from practical experience rather than theory. Faced with severely degraded soil on an old goat farm, Colin Austin set out to regenerate soil faster than conventional thinking allowed. Years of failed experiments revealed that no single additive or method worked reliably. Instead, the breakthrough came from understanding water, soil moisture stability, and microbial life. This chapter explains how soil regeneration depends on managing water to support living soil.
Introduction — The Beginning of the Gbiota Philosophy
In the early 1970s, I was looking for a lifestyle change and bought a small holding that had previously been used as a goat farm. I wanted to grow my own food. I had been brought up growing food, and as I often say, I was born when Hitler declared war — a case of gross exaggeration, but it makes the point.
The reality of the land was confronting. The goats had completely destroyed the topsoil. When wet, the soil became a sticky, gluey mess. When dry, it set as hard as concrete. There was no structure, no life, and no resilience. I was immediately faced with a problem that would shape the rest of my work: how do you regenerate soil that has effectively collapsed?
Soil Regeneration Becomes the Focus
This period coincided with the era of giant dust storms, when millions of tonnes of topsoil were being lost. At the time, farmers were still learning the value of protecting topsoil, and widespread changes in farming practice were yet to come. I did not know then that agriculture would eventually respond, but I could see a looming calamity if the world continued to lose its soil.
Soil regeneration became my serious out-of-work interest. Fortunately, my main business — writing computer simulation software — was becoming successful. Over time it became an international leader in its field and one of Australia’s major exporters of technical software.
That success gave me freedom. I did not need a financial return from my soil research. I could treat it as a long-term research project driven by belief rather than profit. I believed soil regeneration was critical to the future of humanity.
Speculative Research and the Cost of Innovation
The success of my company was based on what I called speculative research. There is a common belief, especially among those who fund research, that science must move cautiously, carefully checking every detail before progressing. That discipline is important, but major breakthroughs often come from experiments that appear ridiculous at first.
The cost of innovation is the willingness to make many mistakes and to feel foolish in front of your peers. This was the same philosophy I brought to my soil regeneration experiments.
When I read the existing literature on soil regeneration, it was deeply discouraging. Regeneration rates were often measured in millimetres per century. I have always been an impatient person, and I wanted a system that could regenerate soil in years, not lifetimes.
Early Experiments and Growing Confusion
I tried everything. Local garden stores must have loved me. I bought every product that claimed to improve soil: clay breakers in bottles, bags, and trailer loads, along with strange plants that were supposed to be ploughed back into the soil as green manure.
I divided the block into small squares in what I believed was a scientific approach. There were control squares, duplicates, and combinations of different treatments. On paper, it looked sound.
In reality, it was a disaster. Some squares showed real regeneration. Others stayed gluey when wet and concrete-hard when dry. Single-variable experiments were a failure. It became clear that regeneration required combinations of processes — green manures, additives, and soil management together.
The results were confusing and inconsistent. I attempted to analyse them using the Taguchi method, a mathematical approach used in Japanese industry to analyse multi-variable systems. Even that failed to make sense of the data.
Why the Experiments Failed
The cruel reality was this: a combination that worked in one area could fail completely in another. After years of effort, the experiments were a shambles. There were no clear rules, no reliable recipes, and no repeatable outcomes.
At this point, my background in computer simulation became relevant. In simulation work, the goal is to write code that behaves like the real world. You create an algorithm, test it, and adjust it using tuning factors until it produces realistic results.
There is a fundamental rule in simulation: if you need endless correction factors and millions of lines of code, the base algorithm is wrong. When that happens, the only sensible option is to start again with a better model.
A Change in Thinking
This was exactly what was happening with my soil experiments. I was trying to create complex formulas involving specific amounts of ingredients, crops, and cultivation methods. The system had become far too complicated to ever be reliable.
I realised I had to stop chasing formulas and start understanding the underlying mechanics. I needed a generic rule — something that could be applied in most situations.
I went back and re-examined my experiments, not looking at what I had controlled, but at what I had ignored.
The Role of Water
The answer was obvious once I saw it: water was playing a critical role. A paddock may look uniform, but nature rarely is. My land certainly was not uniform. It sloped down towards a creek.
I irrigated using the creek, a small dam, and a pump. When I examined soil samples from different squares, it became clear that moisture levels varied far more than I had assumed.
The subsoil contained fissures that created underground flow paths. These were not creeks, but they were enough to channel water preferentially. Some areas dried out badly during hot months, while others became waterlogged in wet periods.
The Key Observation
Only the areas where moisture levels remained moderate and reasonably uniform throughout the year showed real soil regeneration. Areas that were too wet or too dry showed little improvement.
This was a crucial observation, but it was not the full answer. Water alone does not regenerate soil. Water is inert.
The missing piece was biology.
Microbiology and Living Soil
The regenerating areas had something else in common: biological activity. This was obvious from the number of worms present. Worms cannot eat organic matter directly; microbes must process it first.
As I began to explore soil microbiology, I quickly realised how complex the field is. There are countless species, many still unidentified. Scientists seek full understanding, but I am an engineer.
Engineers often build useful systems without fully understanding every underlying detail. History is full of examples where engineering intuition led, and science followed later with explanation.
Conditions, Not Complexity
I did not need to understand every microbe. I only needed to understand the conditions that allow microbial life to flourish. Microbes need food, which is usually available. More critically, they need stable moisture.
This is difficult in Australia, where evaporation exceeds rainfall across most of the continent. In many areas, evaporation is several times higher than rainfall.
At first glance, maintaining soil moisture under such conditions seems impossible. However, soil behaves in a useful way. The surface dries quickly and forms an insulating crust that reduces further evaporation. Beneath this crust, subsoil moisture can remain stable.
Rethinking Water Management
To take advantage of this effect requires a complete rethink of how water is managed. Instead of constantly wetting the surface, the goal becomes protecting subsoil moisture.
This realisation led me into irrigation scheduling, subsurface irrigation, water harvesting, and eventually the wicking worm bed. Of all the methods I explored, the wicking worm bed proved the most successful.
These systems are described in later chapters.
Carbon and the Bigger Picture
At the time of these experiments — now more than thirty years ago — I had no awareness of global warming. With hindsight, it is clear that this work had major implications for carbon capture.
Regenerating soil through biology and moisture stability also rebuilds soil carbon. What began as a personal food-growing problem turned out to be part of a much larger solution.
Looking Ahead
In the next chapter, I will describe my experiments with irrigation scheduling and how they led directly to practical water-efficient growing systems.
