Increasing carrying capacity and poor season resilience: Bulking pastures & diversity
| Project start date: | 15 October 2018 |
| Project end date: | 25 December 2021 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Sheep, Lamb |
| Relevant regions: | Western Australia |
| Site location: | Central wheatbelt Western Australia |
Summary
This project is to demonstrate that sowing cereals & canola into legume pastures can improve sheep profitability and productivity, by increasing carrying capacity/stocking rates through improved pasture composition, grazing, quality and quantity in the Lake Grace area.
Objectives
Using 5 PDS sites in the Lake Grace region of WA, by December 2021, the project will lead to 80% of core producers and 60% of the wider observe group adopting the practice of bulking pastures with cereals and canola. This will be achieved by:
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Demonstrating and analysing the benefits of sowing cereals and canola in legume pastures in terms of:
- Livestock - carrying capacity and stocking rate (estimated minimum 10% DSE/ha increase), as well as impact on productivity benchmarks (lambs/ha, CS/weight gain)
- Profitability - impact of increased carrying capacity on current financial benchmarks (GM/ha, GM/DSE)
- Pasture composition - quality and quantity (estimated 20% increase in energy, digestibility, protein)
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Through annual field days and other communication activities, share the demonstration sites and results to increase confidence and understanding of feed base management to the wider producer groups of 90, to lead to a 70% adoption rate.
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Demonstrate the different cereal sowing rates, as well as fertilizer application, can have on pasture composition, quality and quantity, as well as profitability.
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Measure species composition throughout the season to alleviate fears of cereals outcompeting legumes or legumes being grazed out.
Progress
The bulking pastures & diversity project looking at increasing carrying capacity and poor season resilience in WA’s Lakes region is in its third year, and reaching its conclusion. Producers are finding that cereal pastures are providing more feed than legume and grass-based pastures throughout the season, but particularly in autumn to early winter. This has been extremely valuable providing ground cover and animal shelter during storm events. Sheep condition score has also been shown to be better in mobs grazing these bulked up pastures in previous years.
