19 June 2007
Producer's name: Ray Brown
Location: Moonie, South west Queensland
Enterprise: 8000 hectares total area, cropping and cattle
Number of livestock: 6,000 breeding ewes, 350 breeding cows and 600 to 800 trade cattle per year.
Pastures/crop: 2000 ha wheat and triticale, 1600 ha Bambatsi grass
Soil types: Hard setting clay
The Brown family of Moonie, in south-west Queensland, have 2000 hectares of grain cropping country and some 1600 hectares of Bambatsi grass pasture.
According to Ray Brown, the wheat price will have to stay above $300 a tonne for that relativity between cropping and improved pasture to remain, because he says that's where grain needs to be to match returns from cattle grazing Bambatsi grass.
"And remember, with Bambatsi grass, you have no input costs, unlike grain," Mr Brown says. "And there's always the opportunity to harvest the grass seed as well, virtually a free crop.
"We have found that if we have to fertilise grain crops on old country it is just not economical, particularly the way the seasons have been going.
"You can spend a fortune getting your ground ready for a cereal crop with no return in a poor season."
Those 1600 hectares of Bambatsi grass pasture were one reason for a recent visit by a coach load of farmers organised by the Grain & Graze program's Border Rivers regional coordinator Rachel Charles.
Another was Mr Brown's involvement with the program's national Biodiversity in Grain & Graze research.
A combination of factors led to the first paddock being planted to Bambatsi grass on the Brown's properties 15 years ago.
"Initially we just wanted to spell some of the cropping country which was getting a bit old, and we had new country to replace what we took out of cultivation," Mr Brown says.
"We wanted to plant a species that would put something back into the soil and, although were experimenting with grasses like buffel and purple pigeon, I liked Bambatsi when I first saw a small paddock of it at a friend's place.
"It was doing well on low, hard setting clay soil and I told myself if it grows well in that situation it should really fire at home.
"Now we plant it wherever we can get it in. It loves melon-holey clay soils and doesn't mind wet feet.
"The first paddock we planted is still going strong after 15 years and we are not game to touch it. Then why would we want to do that?"
The Browns' 8000 hectare, four property aggregation remains a full family operation, with Ray working beside his elder brother Glen and seemingly never-ready-to-retire father Alan George, also called "Tim".
"Tim" Brown drew the home property, 1740 hectare Glenalan, in a Brigalow block ballot in the late 1950s and three other properties have been added to make up the total area. Ray Brown lives on Crowders Creek.
Wheat is the main winter crop planted by the family, followed by triticale, which has replaced oats or grazing and which can be carried on for a grain harvest in the right season.
"We moved away from oats because there is just too much rust in it and also because of the seasons; we probably only had one or two good oat crops in 10 years," Ray Brown says.
"With triticale, you can sow at the end of March or in early April and get good feed, with no rust problems, until at least October, when you can shut the paddock up for grain.
"One year we harvested triticale grain on Australia Day. We'd had two grazings from the paddock and it still stayed green. Not a big yield but not bad at six bags (1.3 tonnes to the hectare).
"And the other advantage of triticale is that you can use residual chemicals like Glean and Ally for broadleaf weed control."
Ray Brown credits the Bambatsi grass pastures for the family's ability to weather 10 years of drought "without feeding a beast" of the breeder herd.
"Our carrying capacity might not be as high as some, but we have still been able to buy cattle in during the drought," he says.
"We've made mistakes in learning how to establish Bambatsi - the most notable being an attempt to aerial sow into a paddock of wheat stubble - and we know now you have to treat it as a crop, preparing your soil well and not try to drop the seed behind a blade plough, as some people try to do.
"We have established it well under winter cereals, where I think the crop protects it through to harvest, when it comes away through the stubble after rain.
"We can get as low as minus six degrees out here so cold doesn't seem to do it any damage. There's feed there even in winter."
A collaborative partnership between Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and Land & Water Australia (LWA), Grain & Graze aims to help mixed farmers increase their profitability and simultaneously better manage natural resources.
For more information about the Grain & Graze Program in the Border Rivers Region, contact Regional Coordinator, Rachel Charles on 07 4671 7900 or visit www.grainandgraze.com.au; Richard Price, National Coordinator, on 02 6295 6300, mobile 0409 624 297; Gillian Stewart on 02 6263 6042; Lynne Sealie on 02 6263 6021, or visit www.grainandgraze.com.au.
Grain & Graze Regional Coordinators
Avon Region - Linda Leonard - 08 9690 2191
Border Rivers Region - Rachel Charles - 07 4671 7900
Central West/Lachlan Region - Jodie Dean - 02 6895 1015
Corangamite/Glenelg-Hopkins Region - Cam Nicholson - 03 5258 3860
Eyre Peninsula Region - Alison Frischke - 08 8680 6223
Mallee Region - Zubair Shahzad - 03 5021 9103
Maranoa/Balonne Region - Stephen Ginns - 07 4620 8122
Northern Agricultural Region - Philip Barrett-Lennard - 08 94750753
Murrumbidgee Regional Coordinator - Katrina Sait - 02 6924 4633
