Soil health key driving factor for Gulgong couple

Just over 12 months ago, Kain Rafferty and Alana Wade purchased the 121 hectare (300 acre) Wallani to begin their own Simmental stud.

They both hail from an agricultural background, Mr Rafferty in farm management and Miss Wade in animal science, and decided to strike out on their own.

They are currently supplementary feeding seven stud breeders and a 20-head commercial Angus herd because the property is only holding summer grass with little to no nutritional value.

Before they can get adequate pasture to grow, Mr Rafferty said their strongly acidic soil needs some serious work.

"Everything we are doing is sort of just getting off the ground at the moment," he said.

"Now we've got a bit of country, we're starting our Simmental stud, and ideally we will build it up to 30 breeders which will just about be the maximum here.

"But we realised pretty quickly that the grass nutrition here is nowhere near good enough in terms of cattle and weight gain.

"We've got to supplement our cattle at the moment because there is such a lack of nutrition in this summer grass.

"They just don't put on weight on this, they struggle, and it might as well be roughage.

"So that made us see we needed to start doing some soil work."

Mr Rafferty said his experience working in some tougher areas in South Australia and South-west Queensland as well as studying the topic has helped the pair develop a strategy to improve their soils.

"It doesn't take a genius to look out here right now, and you can tell there's virtually no carbon in the soil," he said.

"I've done a lot of research over the years and I have been quite interested in the works of Peter Andrews and Colin Seis.

"They are definitely people that I think everyone should speak to and pick their brains.

"Part of the plan here is to improve water retention in the paddocks and keep the creek that runs through the property running for longer.

"At the moment, for 350 days a year, there's no water.

"By the time we are finished here and we pass it on to someone else or our kids, we want to be able to say that we built that creek to a certain point and there is enough water holding capacity in the soil."

Miss Wade said that out-dated farming practices had left the soil in a poor state.

"Just looking at the dirt, you can see it's just been mismanaged for so long," she said.

"That is partially to do with old farming practices, but at the same time you look at what we're doing here right now, and you would say, well, it doesn't really look that different to a standard updated farming practice.

"I've got a scarifier and a deep ripper and a plow on the back of the tractor.

"I think you have to use a combination of those methods and regenerative farming.

"It's not all about rip it, seed it, spray it, rip it, seed it, spray it. It's about maybe doing a little bit of soil prep.

"Our goal here is we want to get all the soil prepared and softened because at the moment there's virtually no organic matter in the soil anyway.

"So it's not like we're destroying any mycelium structures that are already there.

"If we were to go and plant, especially up the top of this paddock, we've got a three foot deep ripper and it'll struggle to get a foot deep through some of that soil.

"It's as hard as concrete. So how is a root system going to get through that?"

Mr Rafferty said when they purchased Wallani they got some soil tests done which showed just how bad the soil had suffered.

"We got specific soil tests done and they came back showing the soil was depleted in everything," he said.

"It was depleted pretty much across the board.

"It also showed the soil had very low low pH which can be a flow on effect of the carbon matter not being there.

"Obviously the more carbon you've got in your soil brings your pH down a little bit.

"That can be offset with organic matter and things like that.

"The lack of calcium and magnesium affects your cation exchanges. The soil is just lacking across the board and we're obviously not going to go through after we finish plowing and just pump it full of chemical fertiliser.

"I don't think that's the answer."

Mr Rafferty said they will take a more natural approach to rebuilding the soil.

"We will slowly build our pasture and rotationally graze our cattle," he said.

"It may take longer to get it to a point of peak fertility and performance, but it's a more sustainable way of doing it.

"We'll probably sow one of your stereotypical pastures for year round grazing ability.

"Right now we need to get ourselves to a point where we're sustainable and we can still graze year round.

"Each paddock's probably going to have to be grazed more than once or twice a year, so we need to be able to graze year around.

"We will also look to make the most out of strip grazing and pulling every tool out of the tool chest to try and make it work."

Miss Wade said they will be thinking outside the box on how to use the cattle to help with grazing management.

"We will be utilising the cattle as a tool as well and I think that has been important for us so far," she said.

"We have been using the cattle out in the back paddocks to clean it up out there before we do anything.

"If you treat your cattle like a tool, not just a product, you can use them to improve the ground and improve the country.

"I think that's something that a lot of people don't utilise. They see cattle as purely a product."

To get grazing management to where they want it, Mr Rafferty said they will look at dividing paddocks into smaller ones.

"There is not enough fencing, these paddocks are way too big," he said.

"One paddock is 60 acres and we're looking at splitting it into four pieces.

"We can better manage grazing, including strip grazing in the smaller areas.

"I think the biggest thing is just not over grazing.

"A lot of people think this is grazing out, this is good. But in reality, it's way too far and pasture doesn't recover."