![What a difference eight weeks can make. With three rainfall events of 15 millimetres each since December 18, this is what Mr Leisk's pasture looks like now. What a difference eight weeks can make. With three rainfall events of 15 millimetres each since December 18, this is what Mr Leisk's pasture looks like now.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/39pvfYSLyNgcVbpppa8DQPd/8165fc22-f562-449d-877c-50923cc1e446.jpg/r0_376_4032_3028_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A tropical grass-based pasture at Molong has capitalised on 45 millimetres of rain since December 20 and is now home to 140 Australian White sheep with 160 lambs at foot.
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![Stephen Leisk was pictured with grazed tropicals on our front cover on December 20. Broadleaf weeds were sprayed three days later. Stephen Leisk was pictured with grazed tropicals on our front cover on December 20. Broadleaf weeds were sprayed three days later.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/39pvfYSLyNgcVbpppa8DQPd/1530e592-f099-4080-a284-a344417e7aeb.jpg/r0_0_1665_2361_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Stephen Leisk, “Oxenthorpe” said he thought compost applications had played a major role in the pasture’s development.
“A 52-hectare paddock sown in December with a similar blend of tropics is now about 30 centimetres high with really solid coverage,” he said.
“I’m going to lamb on that new pasture in March and that will be the first lambing where the mothers have been on green in about 16 months,” he said.
In the new pasture he said there was a bit of remnant spiny burr grass that he had never managed to get rid of in a four-year oat cropping phase in one corner of the paddock.
“But the coverage of new tropicals is so strong I can simply move through it on foot and spot spray them out with Roundup.”
He said his agronomist is keen to harvest seed from the older paddock.