An interesting aspect of why the farmer likes farming where Stavely Minerals wants to drill is because of the copper in the soil. Junction Prospect Air-core drill results offered high grade copper in soil values of 35 metres at 3.4% Cu from 24 metres depth. I would expect this deeper copper mineralisation has leached to the surface in the past few million years and provides a natural copper soil enrichment for the local farmer.
Apparently copper is an essential micronutrient for optimising cereal crop yield and quality. "In terms of cereal crops, wheat is the most sensitive to copper deficiency. While barley, followed by oats and then rye being the least sensitive to copper deficiency. When there is adequate Cu in soil, adding more will not improve crop yield or uptake of other nutrients, such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and sulphur (S).", according to a Top Crop Manager web article.
