South-east pasture paradise

Col Medway and Trish Brewer of LAWD have listed for sale West Fairfield and Kadoona, two grazing properties owned by Sydney-based duo, Michael and Jacqui Clarke.

The Clarkes, whose local base is Maxville Park, on the outskirts of Braidwood, are former partners of financial powerhouse Deloitte but now involved in a new advisory venture on their own account.

It's only due to the time demands of their new business venture that the couple are reluctantly selling West Fairfield and Kadoona, which are both midway through a productivity upgrading program.

The properties, West Fairfield of 473 hectares (1168ac) and Kadoona of 258ha (637ac), are being offered by expressions of interest closing on March 11.

Offers will be accepted for the properties individually (provided both go), or as a 731ha (1805ac) aggregation.

The properties are situated a kilometre apart - 48km south of Braidwood, fronting the all-weather Braidwood-Cooma road - at Krawarree, near where Michael's forebears settled in the 1800s.

Described as gently undulating to rolling hill with soils of grey and brown sandy or clay loam, the properties are mostly open, with pockets of retained shelter timber and scattered shade trees.

Situated as they are on the eastern edge of the Southern Tablelands, within 50km of the coast, the properties enjoy a counter-cyclical rainfall pattern to most of southern NSW.

Average rainfall is 793mm with most falls occurring between October and March.

This is a period when pasture growth on the rest of the Southern Tablelands is generally at a standstill.

This makes the properties an ideal 'add-on' to an established livestock enterprise, due to their capacity to grow out weaner Merino sheep, crossbred lambs or cattle on green summer feed.

Most of the country has been pasture improved on agronomic advice, first with a fodder oats crop for one or two years, followed by sowing of deep-rooted perennial grasses and clovers.

Productive native pastures have been retained on about 20 per cent of the property, oversown with white and sub clover.

Improved pastures were kick-started with a capital application of high-analysis fertiliser - 175kg/ha of Triple-Plus in the autumn of 2019 and 2020, equivalent to 350kg/ha of single super each year.

That initial fertiliser boost means that maintenance-level applications only are required from now on to enable pastures to utilise the abundant growing-season rainfall.

At their present stage of development the two properties support an Angus breeding herd of about 400 cows, with spring-dropped calves being sold off as weaners the following autumn.

The country is also well suited to sheep, with carrying capacities now rated at 4000 DSE for West Fairfield and 2500 DSE for Kadoona, but potentially 8000 DSE across the two blocks.

Improvements are limited to a fully-enclosed steel machinery shed (with scope to convert to a shearing shed) and two sets of steel cattle yards serviced by fenced laneways.

There is no dwelling on either block, but both come with a building entitlement.

Offers of more than $3.5 million are expected for West Fairfield, and more than $2.5m for Kadoona.