Durness Station, at Teagardens north of Port Stephens, has experienced an increase in beef kilograms off its paddocks by an order of 40kg per head over the past 10 years thanks to sweet grasses, improved through rotation and nutrition.
Brix levels, which identify sugars and minerals in plant juice, have risen from an average of four degrees to above 13 in subtropical Kikuyu. This means sucrose levels in those grasses have increased more than three-fold, from four grams per 100g to 13g of juice - squeezed fresh from leaves and stalk out in the paddock and measured straight away with a pocket-sized refractometer.
Increased brix readings have a direct impact on paddock health, making them more resilient to frost and insect attack. Dr Google reckons readings above 12 indicate a plant with good pest immunity.
Feeding a paddock is important but so too is resting and on Durness following the introduction of rotational grazing, paddocks sprouted a diversity of species.
Lotus, for example has been given the green light to flourish where it was once confined to the lower and wetter portions of the property.
"Our target now is to produce a calf off the cow at 300 kilograms," said manager Troy Wilton. "That average was closer to 250kg when I first came here 10 years ago."
Rotation of cattle, allowing pasture to rest for 90 days in fast-growing summer months and 120 days in dry conditions, has allowed a diversity of pasture to spring forth.
Mr Wilton uses a mental calculation involving dry sheep equivalent numbers and an estimate of how many days remain in a paddock to decide when to turn cattle off a particular portion of the property.
"If you leave it even a day too long in dry weather you can really affect your rotation schedule," he said.
Durness was once the showpiece of beef producing properties owned by AMP, stocked with Hereford and covered with super-phosphate, applied from the air.
By the time David Fuller of Nepean Engineering at Camden bought the property the magic of Super had run its course.
Mr Fuller hired Mr Wilton as manager on the back of his experience with rotational cell grazing at a property near Cassilis.
Durness now occupies 4000 hectares on the eastern side of the Pacific Highway.
The operation involves another property at Camden, The Oaks, which takes heifers and grows them out to return to Durness as replacements - predominantly Angus and black baldies.
Mr Wilton says the cattle off improved pasture are renowned for their doing ability and performance on grass and grain with repeat buyers the norm.
Troy Wilton, manager of the notable Durness Station at Tea Gardens, is proud to have lifted pasture sugar levels, measured through a brix reader, more than three-fold during his 12 years on the job.
In that period he created 400 hectares of lowland pasture out of country choked with serrated tussock. Appropriate liming, nutrition and sowing has turned the paddocks around.
Smaller paddocks were created on the sprawling property and rotational grazing introduced to give rest and recuperation to a variety of plant types including shy legumes like Lotus. Now the 4000ha of grazing lands and lowlands support 1050 cows and followers, presented with a choice of Kikuyu, red and white clover, phalaris, fescues, Rhodes grass and creeping legumes.
One part of the success story involved slow release fused-magnesium phosphate pellets, spread at the rate of 100kg/ha, initially with a tractor. The glass-hard volcanic mineral wore out a disc spreader before the supplier prill-coated the product. Mr Wilton later spread the heavy material from a plane, at 250kg/ha and found the product stuck to steeper slopes of hills.