Until now.

During the past couple of years, the Williams felt the initial productivity gains they made from no-till—including a gain in soil carbon from 0.7pc to 1.1pc—had plateaued.

When they tested their cropping soils for microbe content through the Soil Food Web laboratory at Lismore, NSW, they discovered that on every count, their soil was low in life.

That sparked an investigation by Mrs Williams into the merits of compost and "compost teas", a microbe-rich tea brewed from compost that can be dribbled down into the crop furrow behind the planter tynes.

Mrs Williams, who has a degree in agricultural science, made a series of trial plots in a wheat paddock and monitored the results.

She told the Carbon Farming conference that despite no visible difference, the plots that had been composted had on average a 20pc increase in yield.

In another trial in a paddock with very low soil carbon levels, carbon jumped significantly under composted areas, and beneficial microbe numbers jumped where compost teas had been used.

Mrs Williams is using scientific caution about the results, but it has piqued the couple’s interest to the point that they have bought a compost turner (replacing the pitchfork used by Mrs Williams) to make compost for the farm.

And Mrs Williams has taken an extra step: with a GRDC scholarship grant, she is now doing a Masters degree on the topic, "Biological properties and soil amendments in the no-till cropping system".

The Williams are pictured with some early-stage compost and their turner.