Grazing Systems to improve profit
| Project start date: | 10 May 2013 |
| Project end date: | 23 June 2016 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Grass-fed Cattle |
| Relevant regions: | Southern Australia |
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Summary
Over the past twenty years there has been a lot of publicity about the benefits of rotational grazing and more recently through programs such as EverGraze, which had a significant presence in the North East of Victoria. However beef and sheep farmers have different farming systems and management constraints that may make the adoption of rotational grazing difficult.
The overarching aim of the project was to increase the number of local farmers using rotational grazing as their preferred grazing management system.
The greatest outcome from this project has been an increase in the adaptive capacity of the individuals and collectively the local community. Each and every member of the core group has moved from autumn to spring calving, adopted some form of rotational grazing, regularly take soil tests and apply variable rates of fertilizer to achieve critical nutrient values.
Objectives
The original project design focused on collecting data from three local demonstration sites and communicating that data to farmers in the form of key performance indicators, at a series of field days, with the aim of providing compelling reason for farmers to change from set stocking to rotational grazing.
Progress
Changes in adaptive capacity include increased knowledge, use of decision support tools and desire to learn and adopt new technologies.
On farm changes include changes to calving date to better align feed supply and feed demand, regular soil testing and using variable fertilizer rates to manage to critical values and changes from set stocking to rotational grazing.
Over results were increased stocking rate, pasture utilization and beef produced per hectare.
