Restoring pasture productivity in the Northern Tablelands

Summary

The Northern Tablelands Pastures Group (NTPG) established this PDS project – “Restoring pastures in the Northern Tablelands”, to support producers recovering from the severe 2018 to 2020 drought. The drought resulted in extensive damage to pastures across the region, with potential long-term detrimental effects on productivity and profitability. At three demonstration sites, a control paddock and treatment paddock were monitored for changes in production of pastures and livestock, as a consequence of fodder cropping and pasture renovation strategies.

Benefit: cost analysis demonstrated the financial return from these strategies. Excellent returns on investment were demonstrated from fodder cropping, fodder conservation and sowing of permanent temperate pasture. Throughout the project, producers attended pasture walks and skills development activities to build confidence and support practice change. Producers significantly increased their skills in pasture assessment, pasture and fodder crop agronomy, weed management, Benefit: cost analysis and assessment of weather predictions throughout the project.

More than 50% of producers responding to the post project survey indicated practice change as a consequence of the project.

Objectives

By November 2025, in the Northern Tablelands of NSW;

1. At up to 6 sites, demonstrate best practice in assessing the status of temperate pastures post drought and development of agronomic plans to restore pasture productivity and resilience to climate variability. (Note: 3 sites will be established in 2020. If seasonal conditions allow the project objectives to be achieved by 2023, then 3 new sites will be established in 2023. Otherwise monitoring will continue on the original 3 sites through to 2025 – subject to a Go/No Go Review)

2. Using a control (no treatment) paddock (or part paddock) as the benchmark, monitor changes in the quantity, quality, composition and stocking rate at the demonstration sites.

3. Conduct a cost:benefit analysis of the benefits of re-establishing pasture and sowing fodder crops post drought and identify the risks associated with establishment.

4. Deliver 12 skills development and training activities (4 per site) each year, to increase the confidence of 12 core producers and 40 observer producers in assessing, restoring and monitoring pasture performance. Fifty percent of the core and observer producers will have adopted best practice pasture establishment and management techniques by the end of the project.

5. Extend the findings of the project to an additional 100 producers across the Northern Tablelands through annual field days at the demonstration sites and visits to other pasture research sites in the region. Increase the knowledge and skills of these producers in assessing pastures and developing agronomic plans for pasture restoration.

Key findings

The project demonstrated that pasture improvement, following drought on the Northern Tablelands is profitable and can result in threefold increases in stocking rate (5 DSE/ha to 15 DSE/ha), providing excellent returns on investment, particularly when pastures persist for longer periods of time. Fodder cropping prior to sowing pastures provides excellent returns as well as beneficial weed control in the lead up to permanent pastures. Benefit: cost analysis was significantly positive for two fodder crop trials. Corn silage was identified as a cost-effective method for conserving fodder in the Northern Tablelands and provides opportunities for weed control prior to sowing down permanent pastures.

The project faced significant challenges in delivery, associated with COVID-19 restrictions and extreme wet and dry conditions throughout the period 2020 to 2023. To maintain engagement with producers and meet their needs, the project worked with multiple partners across the region and provided additional training and skills development on a range of issues that were relevant to livestock production at the time, such as drought feeding and supplementation, weed identification, bloat management and animal health.
Project participants valued the PDS project and increased their skills in assessment of the productive potential of a pasture, development of agronomy plans and monitoring pasture performance.

Sixty four percent of post project survey respondents indicated they were changing practices as a consequence of the project.

Benefits to industry

The principles for profitable fodder cropping and pasture development demonstrated in this project, reinforced MLA’s objectives to support profitable and sustainable grazing industries producing high quality red meat. The technologies demonstrated in this project are not new, but it was important to remind producers of the benefits as they came out of the worst drought in living memory and struggled with how to rebuild their livestock businesses, particularly when cash reserves and flow were low. Pasture renovation still remains complex, although options for fodder crops and weed control were shown to have a significant impact on its success. Adoption remains a challenge across the industry, however this project was able to demonstrate increased levels of skills and adoption of new practices that will support producers as they navigate the increasingly variable climate.

MLA action

MLA continues to deliver the Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) program, supporting livestock producers working in peer-to-peer groups to pursue new skills, knowledge and management practices applicable to their own commercial livestock production systems.

Future research

This PDS faced multiple challenges, with commencement significantly delayed by ongoing drought and COVID-19 restrictions, quickly followed by excessively wet conditions, floods and bushfires. All of these challenges made accessing sites and hosting events difficult and many events had to be cancelled at short notice. Maintaining producer interest and engagement with the project was challenging.

In order to remain relevant to the audience and achieve reasonable attendance levels we adopted a flexible strategy and engaged with multiple partner organisations across the region to provide additional content and skills development at Pasture Walks and Field Days. This additional content focussed on pressing issues at the time such as supplementary feeding, use of sexed semen and fixed time AI, early weaning in the dry and animal health in the wet conditions. Without this additional content we would have struggled to continue the project.

Whilst PDS projects aim to work with a small and stable group over an extended period of time, this was not our experience. The site hosts, project co-ordinators and 3-4 producers were regular attendees, the rest of the group membership changed constantly. In total 229 producers and advisors attended the 11 Pasture Walks, field days and seminars, but only 28 people attended more than 2 events, demonstrating the fluidity of the group.
This fluidity and changes in group membership made evaluation of practice change extremely difficult as the pre and post survey cohort were different and only a small proportion of producers responded in each instance.
Contracting, monitoring and evaluation, reporting and management of PDS projects is not simple and relatively constrained by the form of the contract. We believe the reporting requirements are beyond the capacity of producers without the support of an experienced consultant.