Ten paired monitoring sites were selected to measure soil carbon to 50 cm at strategic locations across the Island with consideration of rainfall, soil type and land use (perennial pasture and continuous no-till stubble retention cropping) compared to annual pasture. Common soil carbon tests were analysed to establish guides for the soils in the region.

• Twenty soils monitoring sites were established on a selection of rainfall, soil type and management systems on the agricultural soils of Kangaroo Island.
• Soil organic carbon (Walkley and Black method), total carbon (Dumas method) and pH (calcium chloride) were analysed for depths 0-5, 5-10, 10-30 and 30-50 cm.
• There was a good relationship between organic carbonWB and total carbonD for the results on Kangaroo Island. A multiplication factor of 1.12 can be used to estimate total carbonD from organic carbonWB.
• There was a strong positive relationship between carbon stock, rainfall and soil type.
o There appears to be a sharp increase in carbon stock at rainfall > 600 mm.
o Sand over clay soil type had lowest carbon stock and ironstone soil type the highest.
• Management system had a variable effect on carbon.
• There are inconsistencies in carbon stock for the sites depending on which analytical test was used organic carbonWB and total carbonD. This requires further investigation.