Restoration of the landscape

"Every time we visited Martin Royds' farm, I came away with positive, excited energy. I could see the ecology, and his enterprise thriving together." Ms Gorman said. "In particular we watched him restore the hydrological cycle, slowing the flow of water."

Yabtree West rises from the fertile Murrumbidgee River flats to steep hills and is home to a trading herd of roughly 400 Angus cattle, who are moved around the property both as the heart of the enterprise and as mobile soil improvers.

"We use the tool of planned rotational grazing to try to do this. The principles behind it include maintaining constant ground cover, slowing the run-off of rainfall and building plant diversity. Of course you have to match the amount of stock you have with the amount of grass you have. If you can get it right the enterprise and ecology improve together," Ms Gorman said.

"To start with we divided the big paddocks with three wires, top and bottom electrified, and then depending on the season and the number of cattle, we strip graze using portable hot wires."

At the beginning of summer, the cattle were being moved daily through small partitions in order to trample Phalaris that had gone rapidly to seed in the hot wet season.

Through the years, Ms Gorman and her property manager Dean Hann have studied a range of courses centred around Holistic Management, Peter Andrews' Natural Sequence Farming and KLR Marketing. They read widely, watch plenty of online videos and Ms Gorman has joined a local farmer support group.

"Having the support of other farmers has been fantastic - there are so many challenges and ideas to explore so having people to bounce ideas off and receive advice from is essential." Ms Gorman said.

Yabtree West is also having its ecology monitored by Land to Market Australia, where their Ecological Outcome Verification helps to check if the soil health and biodiversity goals are actually being met.

"It's a great entry point into the environmental services market," she said.

One of the benefits Ms Gorman has noted in the eight years owning the property, is the slow but steady rehabilitation of previously degraded areas like erosion gullies, created from years of set stocking.

"It is exciting to see the recovery but it's not always straightforward and often very messy looking. I am planning for the next 50-100 years and in that time hopefully the grass, tree and shrub consistency that we create will help steady our small water cycle and build local biodiversity, while also running the enterprise," she said.

"One of the images I started with was to have clear water trickling through the landscape and we are starting to see that now which is very gratifying."

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