P.PSH.2138 - Pasture Trials Network – Phase Three Development

Summary

This project represents the third stage of a collaborative partnership between MLA and the Pasture Trial Network (PTN) that has been ongoing since 2011.

The partnership funds the conduct of joint trials between seed companies to help producers and their advisors assess which are the best-performing varieties for a range of pasture species. Since its inception, PTN has enabled livestock producers, advisors, and supply chain stakeholders to make more informed decisions about forage variety selection.

Objectives

The objectives of the third phase of funding focused around:

• Building more robust governance processes.
• Building communication frameworks.
• Continuing the current and future deployment of trials within temperate Australia.
• A concept note for building a forage value index for the red meat industry.
• Build a value proposition for the next funding phase of the PTN.

Key findings

Highlights from the current phase of the PTN partnership included:

• An additional 69 trials commenced between 2018 and 2021. Trials were conducted and annually audited against the PTN protocol, with 13 trials still active at the end of the project and 35 completed and uploaded to the MLA PTN eTool. Site descriptions were updated for many historical trials that were missing this valuable information.
• Improvements have been made to the organisational data management, with the implementation of new tools, including a dedicated project management tool, Smartsheet, data storage facilities SharePoint and OneDrive.
• An industry survey was conducted to understand the industry perceptions of the PTN, and found that the PTN had an impact in directly and indirectly supporting producers through their advisors but needs to work on greater relevance to more regions and cultivars and more excellent value in interpreting and promoting the data and program generally.
• A value proposition conducted within the project indicates that the red meat sector derives value from the PTN through the increased industry uptake of improved ‘proprietary’ varieties that can increase producer returns by $200/ha or more, compared to outdated ‘generic’ varieties. Uptake of the proprietary varieties is improving, with estimates suggesting that an additional $10M was gained by the red meat sector between 2015 and 2021 through their increased usage. Further investigation suggests that there is substantial unfulfilled potential, with the industry potentially able to achieve an additional $200M of red meat production annually if producers ceased using underperforming varieties.

Benefits to industry

• An industry survey found that the PTN had an impact in directly and indirectly supporting producers through their advisors but needs to work on greater relevance to more regions and cultivars and more excellent value in interpreting and promoting the data and program generally.
• A value proposition conducted within the project indicates that the red meat sector derives value from the PTN through the increased industry uptake of improved ‘proprietary’ varieties that can increase producer returns by $200/ha or more, compared to outdated ‘generic’ varieties. Uptake of the proprietary varieties is improving, with estimates suggesting that an additional $10M was gained by the red meat sector between 2015 and 2021 through their increased usage. Further investigation suggests that there is substantial unfulfilled potential, with the industry potentially able to achieve an additional $200M of red meat production annually if producers ceased using underperforming varieties.

MLA action

MLA is using the outcomes of this project to inform new investments.

Future research

Future iterations of the partnership should consider the expansion of the number of tested species and an increased range of locations to increase the applicability of the datasets to a wider producer audience. Increased promotion and education of PTN activities (particularly to advisors) would also increase the reach of the PTN and improve the uptake of improved genetics, resulting in greater productivity improvements in the red meat sector.