AS OF last month the Central Tablelands has become home to a new pasture trial.
The trial is designed to determine the influence of different forms of intensive rotational grazing on animal performance, pasture composition and soil properties.
Set up at Cargo farmer Wes Brown’s property, “Grenabri”, the trial will last for three years and is funded by Australian Wool Innovation (AWI).
Mr Brown’s involvement in this new trial was due to a previous experience with the Evergraze program, which highlighted some benefits from changed grazing management.
However, while the Evergraze trial answered some questions, he said there was still much to be learnt, not just from the scientific data but from interaction between farmers.
“Because the data is relevant and attractive to farmers, we can apply the results to make a difference in terms of production and looking after the environment,” he said.
“Long-term profitability may rise due to the natural resource management changes, but significant improvements to profit might take some years to realise.
"EverGraze has become a springboard to come up with answers to some questions, such as ‘is it possible to further manipulate that 20-paddock style grazing system so it will improve individual animal production?’ – and that’s what we’re going to be trying to answer.”
In the new trial on “Grenabri”, the hands-on research side of things was being conducted by the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI).
Mr Brown said the project is using local average stocking rates.
The research will be conducted at two sites: one which is predominant in native pasture species (Mr Brown’s property), and an introduced species pasture site at the Orange Agricultural Institute.
With concerns about climate change, Mr Brown said the research into pastures was more important than ever and his policy for his own farm was to be as flexible as the seasonal situation.
He said whether the season was good or bad it was important to adapt to the situation in a quick fashion.
“We do need to have more adaptable grazing systems particularly in the tablelands environment,” Mr Brown said.
The trial area will include nine hectares, divided into three replica paddocks, which was standard research trial practice designed to provide robust statistics.
The DPI researchers will create a 30-paddock system and a 15-paddock system in two of the three replica paddocks, while the third will be a single paddock where the set stocking system is run.
The 30- and 15-paddock systems will be trialled on 120- and 60-day rest periods, while the set stocking system will constantly carry stock throughout the trial.
The soil type was a mixture of decomposed basalt and metamorphosed sedimentary rock in an average rainfall area of 889 millimetres.
Mr Brown trades in cattle and produces prime lambs, and with three lambings in two years he will always have dry crossbred ewes on hand to be used in the trial.
“The base stocking rate for this place is about eight dry sheep equivalent a hectare on native pastures, so that’s probably what we’ll run here (at the trial site),” Mr Brown said.
Data will be generated annually and reported back to AWI.