More beef from tropical pastures

Summary

​The Dungog - Gresford Land & Beef Inc. group (DGLB) is an active beef producer group based in the Lower Hunter Valley of NSW interested in learning and sharing information relevant to the industry. Off interest to the group were new varieties of subtropical grasses and companion legumes and which may have the ability to persist and establish in both higher and lower fertility soils.

Overall, while some novel legumes such as Gland Clover and Yellow Serradella performed well in the year of establishment, adapted cultivars of Sub Clovers (and especially White Clovers) still were best able to persist and produce biomass year on year. Experience during the research of these temperate legume options indicate that historical problems of clover persistence may have more to do with fertiliser management than species selection.

Of the subtropical grasses trialled Solander setaria and Chloris gayana (Callide Rhodes Grass) gave the best production on low fertility soils and Megamax 509 Panic proved equally productive to these on a higher fertility site.

The combination of high biomass producing subtropical grasses along with persistent temperate legumes should enable a two to four fold increase in land productivity compared with the current systems dominated by weeds such as blady grass.