While much of the nation has received a lot of rainfall over winter, and pastures are expected to boom in the spring sunshine, that is not always the case.
To help producers maximise animal health and growth, Central West Local Land Services held a pasture workshop at Waranilla, near Tullamore, NSW.
Led by Central West Local Land Services' regional agricultural landcare facilitator, Rohan Leach and senior land services officer - livestock, Sue Street, the workshop was designed to help producers understand how much feed was actually in a paddock and how long it would last their stock.
The workshop looked at groundcover assessment, dry matter cuts, pasture budgeting and feed test analysis.
Using a LLS pasture quadrant, Rohan demonstrated how to assess the groundcover of a paddock.
"The pasture quadrant allows you to get a good random sample across the paddock," he said.
"When assessing your pasture it is really important to be random.
"You don't want to only look at the pasture which looks good to the eye.
"Everything that is living material including animal poo, dry sticks, stubble and rocks is groundcover.
"The important thing with groundcover is it stops rain damage and run off."
With a background in ruminant health, Sue shared a groundcover assessment system which has worked for her.
"Using the quadrant, or an imaginary square if you don't have one, I break it into four smaller squares and try to move the groundcover into those squares. What is left is the percentage of ground not covered."
To do a dry matter assessment, Rohan and sue said to take 10 samples using the quadrant to cut down to the level the pasture will be grazed to.
"Mix the samples well and then halve it," sue said.
"Take one half, mix it again then halve it again.
"Put it in the microwave to remove the moisture, checking for when the weight stops changing.
"Using the formula of dry sample weight (g) x 110 will give you the dry matter per hectare (kg/DM/ha)."
"Once the dry sample weight is measured, dry matter per hectare (km DM/ha) can be calculated."
"A mob of 300, 90kg ewes can eat for 180 days on a paddock with 1500kg of dry matter available," Rohan said.
"Knowing this can give producers a bit of confidence in how long they can leave their stock in a paddock."
Knowing this has a number of positive effects.
"It helps producers strategically graze their properties while allowing the livestock to get the most from the pasture," Sue said.
LLS has a groundcover app which helps with assessments. It is available through the Apple app store or Google Play.
