Alternative pasture legumes in NSW Central West

Summary

This Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) is designed to demonstrate alternative annual forage legume options available to meat producers in the LRZ of CW NSW that have not been traditionally used, showing they can be easily integrated and adopted to existing mixed farming operations to assist in meat production and adaptation to climate variability.

Objectives

By January 2024, at three sites in the low rainfall zone (LRZ) of Central West NSW, the project will: 

1. Demonstrate a selection of deep-rooted, hardseeded annual legumes, such as biserrula, serradella and bladder clover and their establishment techniques, against the current options of sub clover, medics and Lucerne, as forage options that can self-regenerate and become a more reliable feedbase resource for red meat production. 

2. Benchmark ‘local’ dry matter and herbage quality of alternative feedbase options and determine potential livestock production (through Grazfeed) to facilitate adoption and integration with other feedbase options. 

3. Calculate the comparative cost-benefit of alternative annual legume pastures compared to current annual feedbase options, based on DM production, feed quality etc.  

4. Develop skills and knowledge of the core group of producers in the project of alternative annual hardseeded legume feedbase options to allow them to better manage drought recovery strategies and climate variability.

5. Conduct ‘seasonal’ and timely field days to show and disseminate the site results and encourage adoption of the new alternatives that can assist with ongoing farm productivity and sustainability.

6. 15 core producers and 48 key and observer producers, will have improved their knowledge and skills regarding the suitability of hard seeded legumes, including the benefits that pasture legumes have to their overall farm productivity.

7. 15 core producers and 48 key and observer producers will be confident to adopt the project’s management strategies to increase pasture persistence and productivity and address the autumn/winter feed gaps to reduce risk and improve profitability.

8. 8 core producers and 10 key and observer producers will adopt some or all of the new practice by incorporating  alternative annual hardseeded legumes into their farming systems.

9. The results of the project will be disseminated with targeted extension activities (CWFS newsletter, social media platforms, CWFS website, traditional media such as newspapers, linkages with other industry stakeholders, grower groups and relevant projects) to encourage adoption of the most suitable options.

Progress

The Alternate legumes pasture species project enters its final year of the MLA producer demonstration site program (PDS). The Central West Farming System’s (CWFS), three demonstration sites; one at Gunning Gap, one at Condobolin Research station (ARAS), and one Producer host site North West of Condobolin, continue to demonstrate five alternate hard seeded legume species as forage legume options comparing them to lucerne and dual-purpose wheat forage types options in LRZ of CW NSW. This year the PDS sites have moved from a cereal rotation phase back into a pasture phase. 
 
After an extremely dry start to the year, germination of the sites has been monitored and compared to dual purpose wheat that was sown in early May 2023 and the existing lucerne pasture treatment. Seed regeneration of the hard seeded legumes has been measured and a focus on which species establish from seed banks that were created in the first year of the establishment of this project.   
 
This project focus in the final year demonstrates which of these alternate species options fit back into grazing mixed farming systems in this local area. The production forage capacities will during the season continue to be measured such as forage quantity and quality. This provides an opportunity to capture ‘local’ benchmark data and assess potential livestock production from these alternate feed base options. The CWFS team is looking forward to holding field day/field walk at each site after disruptions from COVID and flooding in the previous 2 years.  
 
The pasture phase this year in the PDS program gives producers the opportunity to see how the species adapts to climate variability and the opportunities to existing farming operations to implement these options into their farming feed base forage systems.