Red Meat Targets: Grazing Management Systems for increasing red meat production on King Island

Summary

King Island is a major beef production region of Tasmania annually processing about 23 000 animals at the local export accredited abattoir. Because the island is relatively small with only about 100 000 ha of agricultural land, production increases can largely only be achieved by increasing productivity from the available land. Pastures on the coastal sands, mainly located on the western side of the island have traditionally been less productive than those at other locations and thus have been used as winter run off areas. Preliminary investigations showed that although cocksfoot survived these conditions well, production was compromised due to nitrogen deficiency caused by a lack of companion legumes. The aim of this project was therefore to quantify the response, in terms of cattle live weight gain, of these pastures to applied nitrogen fertiliser.