Sheep producers reminded to watch for seed risks

With seed due to set in spring, producers can take action now to avoid having their carcases downgraded due to seed contamination.

Traditionally seedy carcases have resulted in financial penalties at a processing level, because of the higher levels of production inefficiencies causes by the need for significant trimming.

MLA program manager for sheep and goat productivity Melanie Smith said grass seed contamination not only has an influence at a processing level, but on farm as well.

"Seeing grass seeds in a carcase is just the tail end of the process, the initial impact of grass seed contamination occurs on farm when the animals come in contact with the grass seed," Dr Smith said.

"Grass seeds become stuck in the wool and ultimately work their way down into the skin causing irritation to the animals and impacting on farm productivity by reducing sheep growth rates, animal welfare, and ultimately impacting profitability through lowering wool, skin and carcase values.

"From a biosecurity perspective sheep with grass seed and weed contamination can become a transporter of seeds between paddocks and farms, so it's important that producers have an appropriate biosecurity plan in place to mitigate the risk to their business."

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Dr Smith said there were ways that producers could easily mitigate the problem to reduce any effects.

"The first step is to identify problem species and knowing if you have those species in your paddocks and when they set seed " she said.

"Typical problem grasses are barley, brome, erodium, and silver grass which are located in different geographic sheep grazing regions across Australia.

"The second step is to explore available short, medium, and long term seed reduction or avoidance strategies that are cost effective for producers to implement on their farm.

"Unfortunately, there is no single management strategy that can be applied to all situations but there are options for producers to consider, such as strategic grazing management prior to grasses going to head, and looking into turning off stock prior to high risk grass seed periods.

"Alternatively, before putting animals into high risk paddocks, you could top those paddocks or implement fodder conservation to reduce animals coming into contact with grass seeds."

Dr Smith said during the winter months producers should be planning and managing paddocks with short term options to try avoid a high risk periods. Some strategies including strategic grazing, putting animals on forage crops or premature shearing can be implemented.

"A lot of producers may already have winter crops in the ground, this can be quite a beneficial strategy for producers who have historically had grass seed contamination problems during that time," she said.

"Although high risk grass seed periods last only a couple of months, the ultimate long term goal is to encourage producers to include grass seed management across the year.

"We have seen successful producers develop integrated approaches to tackle grass seeds that have been both cost effective and profitable to their businesses."