Pasture growth
This is module 3 of the MLA More Beef from Pastures - The producer's manual, which offers practical information to help lift the productivity and profitability of southern beef businesses.
It will help you to develop expertise in soil, pasture and grazing management to boost productivity and profitability.
What this module is about
- Map your grazing lands into pasture zones based on land capability and primary land use.
- Predict the potential annual pasture production from your grazing land using long-term rainfall records.
- Work out how the water cycle operates on your farm.
- Adopt new strategies to improve and maintain water use efficiency.
- Build and maintain soil nutrients for productive pastures and healthy soils.
- Manipulate your pasture composition and productivity by using combinations of grazing management, fertiliser and herbicide application.
There are 4 steps to improving pasture growth and quality
- Map grazing land into pasture zones
Develop a map of grazing lands to define land capacity and limits based on primary land use, pasture productivity, soil, and spatial and environmental constraints.
- Characterise rainfall variability and establish water use efficiency
Rainfall is a key determinant of pasture growth so it is important understand the pattern of rainfall on your land to realise the potential of grazing land to produce pasture. Achieving water use efficiency across all pasture zones ensures the highest possible rainfall infiltration, capacity of soil to store water and ability of pasture roots to access stored water.
- Build and maintain soil nutrients
Nutrients are a key element to growing good pastures. Manage soil nutrients to increase pasture growth, quality and composition in all pasture zones.
- Manipulate pasture species composition in each pasture zone
Ensure that each pasture zone maintains a pasture composition that produces best growth, while contributing to species diversity and balance, efficient water use, and environmental protection and stability across the farm. Species composition and productivity can be manipulated using combinations of fertiliser application, grazing management and strategic herbicide application, which can avoid costly resowing.
Toolkit 3
These tools will assist the on-farm implementation of each step in this module:
- Guide to mapping pasture zones and developing the capacity for differential land management
- Methodology for assessing soil texture
- Visual indicators for identifying waterlogged and salt-affected soils
- List of state departments of agriculture websites for further information
- Establishing the normal pattern and variability of rainfall
- A guide to measuring water use efficiency (WUE) and setting targets for all pasture zones
- Methodology for field-based pasture measurements
- Table of critical limits for soil nutrients and other ratios important to pasture productivity
- Guidelines for pasture nutrient applications
- NATA-accredited soil testing laboratories
- Guidelines to composition measurements
- Sources of information on common pasture species and weeds
- Rainfall to Pasture Growth Outlook tool
Linkages to other modules
This module uses information from Module 1: Setting directions and Module 2: Tactical stock control.
This module is directly linked to Module 4: Pasture utilisation, and indirectly linked through pasture utilisation to Module 6: Weaner throughput and Module 8: Meeting market specifications. It is also linked to Module 7: Herd health and welfare through nutritional and metabolic disorders.
More information
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