Adding supplements key to weight gain on grazing wheat

Related reading

However, due to mineral imbalances, wheat requires more livestock management than other grazing cereals, not only for animal health purposes but also to maximise production.

Mixed farmer Peter Schuster, Benalong, Dubbo said grazing wheat had helped them through the last three years of drought.

"We have access to irrigation so we were able to maintain reasonable numbers, in a self-replacing Merino, first-cross lamb and steer trading enterprises, due in no small part to dual-purpose wheat," Mr Schuster said.

Wheat has been Mr Schuster's chosen grazing crop because it suits their climate, can be planted early, gives multiple grazings and recovers well after being locked up.

"We've experimented with several different varieties and we're on Kittyhawk at the moment," Mr Schuster said.

"We can graze the crop pretty hard, given it's very long season growth habit, and provided we lock it up before it starts to elongate and we feed it some nitrogen, we don't tend to see an appreciable grain yield deficit."

Central West Local Land Service officer Sue Street said mineral supplements were crucial to increasing productivity on grazing wheat.

Dr Street pointed to cattle trials by Rebecca van Es, University of Western Sydney, and Julian Minehan, Landmark, Goulburn, which found offering both magnesium and sodium supplements increased liveweight gains by 21 to 62 per cent.

While, sheep trials by CSIRO's John Kirkegaard and Hugh Dove, found providing magnesium and sodium increased weight gains by 31-54pc.

"All young, growing crops contain an imbalance of minerals, but the risk of metabolic disease is very high in wheat because of the high potassium content and low salt content," Dr Street said.

"You need to make sure you have sodium, magnesium and calcium available to those animals in order for them to reach their growth rate potential."

Tips for improving supplement intake included setting up several access points to the minerals, checking licks for crusting following rainfall and mixing supplements with grain, molasses or salt to initially get animals interested.

Dr Street said producers should introduce livestock to grazing wheat gradually, over seven to 10 days, if possible.

"If you're unable to do that, you at least need to have roughage available," she said.

Mr Schuster said they religiously provided livestock on grazing wheat with mineral supplements, one part salt, one part causmag, one part lime, along with roughage.

"We give them ad lib access to those mineral licks in a dry-form, we tend to mix ourselves, purely from a cost perspective, but the brew that we make is not water-resistant so we do need to be careful especially in a wet year like this," he said.

He kept an eye on the cattle and sheep stools and increased roughage if they were too liquid.

"If we see good, firm stools we know the feed's working and the animals are gaining the maximum benefit," he said.

"This year we've certainly been able to maintain 1kg per day per head in the cattle through winter and we're just starting to see that increase as we come into the warmer weather and longer days.

"But we do watch for scouring in the sheep, we'll crutch them going into spring, just so we prevent any fly-strike issues that may come as a result of that feed running through a portion of the lambs a bit too quickly."

Mr Schuster utilised crash grazing methods on wheat.

"The plants come back much better with crash grazing and we avoid patches," he said.

"We have up to 100 DSE into a paddock for a short period of time, take the crop down uniformly and then move that mob onto another block and do the same again.

"With cattle, crash grazing works really well, although with sheep we need to be a bit more careful and make sure we manage issues like Barber's Pole and other, internal parasites."

As a result cattle were put in first followed by the sheep.

"The cattle help clean up some of those parasites," he said.

Central West Local Land Services' Rohan Leach said profitability opportunities for grazing dual-purpose crops were unprecedented.

But, he highlighted the balancing act between getting the most grazing potential from the crop and ensuring grain yield is not heavily penalised by leaving stock on for too long.

"Traditionally farmers would have taken stock off around a set date in August, but with more research we've found the optimal time to lock the crops up is Growth Stage 31, just as the cereal plant is starting to push its head up," Mr Leach said.

"If the head's grazed off, that's when your grain yield is really going to take a nosedive."

However, Mr Leach also referenced research conducted by CSIRO's Dr Lindsay Bell, which found when meat prices are high and grain prices are low, leaving livestock on longer and taking a hit on yield can be more profitable.

Mr Leach said once the crop had been grazed, it was likely that nitrogen would be lacking.

"In most cases nitrogen would be required to finish up and chase those high end yields, especially this year where we've got a pretty full moisture profile," he said.

Have you signed up to The Land's free daily newsletter? Register below to make sure you are up to date with everything that's important to NSW agriculture.