It's part of a plan to improve soil so it "draws" the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into soil, where it would remain in solid form, La Trobe University researcher Jim Radford said.

"Our hope is that the compost will increase the soil's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by super-charging the soil microbes that are already present," he said.

Soil microbes and fungi are capable of trapping the gas and keeping it in the soil, Dr Radford said.

The compost will will come from households across the City of Greater Bendigo and the Campaspe Shire. Company Biomix will prepare it for use on cattle farms near Raywood, Arnold, Stanhope and Kyabram.

Cattle will be rotated on and off the pasture for short periods to see whether soil is improved by having time to rest and recover.

It is unclear whether that process will offset the greenhouse gas emissions that the cows create - methane and nitrous oxide farted and belched out of livestock accounts for 10 per cent of the country's emissions, according to the Australian Department of Agriculture.

"That's sort of what we're investigating," Dr Radford said.

Trials in the United States found as much as three tons of carbon trapped over three years, but central Victoria had less productive soil and a dryer climate, he said.

"But if we assume we could store half of that, and that system was rolled out across all the north central and Goulburn Broken regions, that could be the equivalent of seven-and-a-half million passenger vehicles being sucked out of the atmosphere," Dr Radford said.

That would be the same as eliminating nearly 40 per cent of the nation's cars. A recent Australian Bureau of Statistics census put the number of cars across the country at 19.5 million.

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"I mean, that's an extreme extension of the science, in that it's unlikely that this system will be rolled out over all of central and northern Victoria's grazing pastures, but it gives you an idea of the scope that scaling this up might bring," Dr Radford said.

Researchers also want to know how much plants benefit from improved soil, and whether more moisture soaks into the ground after the compost is mixed in.

"With climate change, we are experiencing hotter and drier summers, with longer dry spells. We are hoping that with better soil structure more moisture is retained," Dr Radford said.

The project is being funded by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning's Virtual Centre for Climate Change and other collaborators include the Green Cocky and Goulburn Broken Catchment Authority.

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