B.GBP.0029 - "The Sweet Spot": Improving breeder herd performance through optimal pasture utilisation

Summary

Beef enterprises in northern Australia face the challenge of optimising breeder herd productivity and profitability while maintaining land condition under variable climates. A key industry issue is balancing stocking rate and pasture utilisation to maximise returns without compromising animal performance or long-term sustainability. The Sweet Spot project was undertaken to provide evidence-based guidance on this balance and to identify management strategies that improve both profitability and landscape productivity and resilience.

Objectives

The project aimed to evaluate the short-term (1-5 years) impacts of pasture utilisation on breeder performance with existing empirical breeder datasets, as well as the longer-term (multi-decadal) impacts using a bioeconomic modelling approach to identify the pasture utilisation rates which optimise breeder productivity (pregnancy, lactating cows pregnant within four months, calf loss and weaning percentage) for particular pasture communities in northern Australia.

Key findings

Pasture growth and utilisation were retrospectively modelled for 350 site-years in 60 paddocks for the breeder herd datasets. Estimated paddock level safe pasture utilisation rates varied between 9 and 30%.

Multivariable modelling findings demonstrated that high relative pasture utilisation significantly reduced individual animal performance across all reproductive and weaning outcomes. In the Barkly, the optimal median annual utilisation rate for profitability was 18-23%, aligning with its safe rate of 20%. In the Burdekin, with lower land resilience and more periods of successive years with below-average rainfall, highest profitability was achieved at 18-20% utilisation, which is lower than its assumed safe rate of 25%.

Benefits to industry

The findings provide clear evidence that pasture utilisation, nutritional availability, and strategic management, such as management of body condition score and lactation, are critical determinants of reproductive performance and long-term herd sustainability in northern Australian beef systems, and that over the long term, optimal production and profitability is acheived at moderate utilisation rates.

MLA action

As part of MLA's 2030 strategic plan, there is a focus to invest in natural capital and land productivity. Research, development, and adoption activities that promote improved land productivity through optimised carrying capacity and reproductive performance in northern Australia will form part of that focus.

Future research

Further research areas may include expanding the regional scope of bioeconomic modelling of the economics of pasture utilisation to additional production environments. In areas where there is little empirical data on safe utilisation rates for different land types, work with producers with good land condition and stocking rate records to retrospectively model safe utilisation rates for different land types. 

Adoption and extension materials including case studies and 'how-to guides' should be developed to assist producers to identify if they could improve breeder performance through management of stocking rates.