Pasture legumes in the mixed farming zones of WA and NSW: shifting the baseline

Summary

​The traditional legume feedbase has diminished in quality in mixed farming zones of WA and NSW over the last 25 years as a consequence of continuous cropping and climate variability.

Alternative pasture legumes with physiological characteristics that make them more resilient to perturbations have been domesticated, and are now available for implementation to improve the feedbase.

This project by agronomists in WA and NSW associated with Murdoch University, Charles Sturt University and DPIRD, and has given producers the information to adopt, summer sow and manage these alternative pasture legumes.

Grower Groups were able to evaluate the benefits at the paddock scale. The new pasture legumes carried stock at higher numbers through difficult winters, and provided the basis of better N nutrition to animals and crops, delivering up to $1200 per ha. in increased meat production.

Three hundred tonnes of pink serradella were delivered to one seed works in WA in 2016/2017, to be prepared for summer sowing. Twenty-seven articles in rural newspapers and social media were aired on the project in 2016 and 2017, again indicating the popularity of the topic. Producers have now been given the confidence to adopt alternative pasture legumes in situations where sub clover has been unreliable.