Northern Agricultural Region, WA

Project contact: Tim Wiley, phone (08) 9956 8555, email twiley@agric.wa.gov.au

The Northern Agricultural Region has a long tradition of growing annual pastures and crops. Farming systems have suffered from a lack of feed in autumn for stock and from erosion by a lack of ground cover at this time.

The recent innovation of using sub-tropical perennial pastures and fodder shrubs fills this autumn feed shortfall and addresses rising water tables.

The challenge now is to work out how best to fit these new fodder options into the existing farming system.

The project involves 20 demonstration farms which will be extensively monitored. The stocking rate will be compared on annual, perennial and stubble pastures and liveweight data will be collected. Pasture productivity will be measured remotely via Pastures in Space for correlation with animal performance. Pasture growth predictions will be validated using on-farm monitoring.

All grazing and crop impacts of adopting perennial pastures will be collated using the farm software PAM.

A sub-sample of the 20 demonstration farms will be benchmarked at the start and end of the project to track changes in farm productivity and profitability.

Whole-farm feed/supply models will be used to test scenarios for integrating perennials in whole farm grazing systems.

Three trials will be conducted to develop grazing management guidelines for perennial pastures, providing information and advice on integration with existing farm fodder resources.

Two of these trials will determine the optimum frequency and height of grazing sub-tropical perennial grasses. The other trial will determine the length of grazing and rest required for saltland pastures.

The project is supported by the Evergreen group, Liebe group, Mingenew Irwin group, Victoria Plains Local Conservation District, and the Department of Agriculture & Food, Western Australia