Challenge of the North: The Katherine Area (1960)

A scientific field survey of the natural resources of the Katherine-Darwin region of the Northern Territory was undertaken in 1946. This film shows how the area was divided into `land systems’ – regions with the same pattern of topography, soil types and vegetation – and why one particular land system, which became known as the `Tipperary’, was selected for intensive field study.

Research on cash and fodder crops at CSIRO’s Katherine Research Station (in the Tipperary) and, on a larger scale, at the Northern Territory Administration’s Experimental Farm, has indicated some of the possibilities for agriculture in a dry, monsoonal climate without irrigation.