A drought assistance field day held on a property in the Pilliga has equipped landholders with information and management strategies to cope with ongoing dry conditions.
The day focused on improving the nutritional quality of existing pastures by planting supplementary tropical grass species and legumes.
Presentations were also delivered by specialists in livestock management and grazing pressure.
One of the highlights of the day was a presentation by well respected agricultural consultant and Coonabarabran based farmer, Bob Freebairn.
Mr Freebairn started as a district agronomist in Coonabarabran in the late 60s, and has devoted much of his working life to improving soil health and developing pasture cropping systems.
He was keen to assist in areas hardest hit by the current drought.
“For some areas, this will be the third summer without rain, a 1 in 100 year event,” he said.
“My message today has been that the ideal pasture is a perennial with an annual legume, but if you don’t look after soil fertility you’ll have problems with legumes, if you don’t have legumes you’ll have problems with the quality of your pasture.”
Peter and Sharon Hanigan were glad to host the event on their cattle property ‘Pasadena’, which recently received its first fall of rain since July 2012.
The Hanigan’s began pasture cropping to supplement native grasses about 15 years ago, initially using Bob Freebairn’s regular columns in The Land newspaper to guide their efforts.
Mrs Hanigan said the introduction of legumes and tropical grasses to their pastures had been a great success.
“Tropical grasses do work, they’re productive and they’ve enabled us to move with the times and improve our farm to stay productive,” she said.
“Our neighbours would look over the fence and ask what we were growing and the speakers we had here today know all the science and can explain it a lot better than we can.”
Despite pasture cropping, the Hanigans had been feeding their stock for 20 months prior to the recent rain event. Mr. Hanigan said once the body of grass on Pasadena began to dwindle due to lack of rain they’d been forced to start feeding molasses.
“The better condition the paddocks are in, the more feed you’ll have for longer so theoretically the dry spells will have less of an impact on you,” he said.
“But there was just no protein in any of the feed at all, so we maintained our cows by feeding a mix of molasses and urea, they would have had to go for sure without that.
“Most people around here use dry lick, but I use M8U, adding salt to retard the intake of that mix.
“I’ve only got cattle and I make sure I’ve got at least 8% Urea, you’d think that would kill every thing but it doesn’t, I haven’t lost a single animal and I’ve been doing that for quite a while.
“It’s what the fellows up north are doing.”
The field day was funded and facilitated by the Federal Department of Agriculture, the NSW Department of Primary Industries, Local Land Services, Landcare, and Outreach Drought Assistance.
Amanda Glasson works for the Catholic Community Service, one of the organisations selected to deliver funds through the Federal government’s Outreach Drought Assistance program.
“My funding is to support events that are happening within the region, I like to react to what the community is asking for, and the feedback we’ve been getting is that people want more of this type of event,” she said.
“About 40 odd farmers have come here today which is a pretty good roll up for an on farm field day that’s quite specific, and it’s the social aspect as well, if you’re doing something that’s going to give them a little bit of information plus has the bonus of a social event then that’s a great outcome.”
Landcare Coordinator based in Coonamble, Danielle Bonnington, said landholders had expressed their appreciation of local field days.
“A lot of the time the feedback is ‘thanks so much for coming out to these areas and bringing the information to where we live’, because most of the time people are asked to travel distances to receive this kind of information so they’re appreciative when the experts come to them,” she explained.
“It’s not just the information given in the presentations, over lunch they start throwing ideas around and learning from each other which is really important as well.
“Today is about providing advice on management in dry times, feeding sheep and cattle, and the nutritional needs and feed value issues with stock.
“Don’t stop feeding was the main message, if you’re feeding stock don’t stop because the changes in the rumen will affect stock and they’ll go backwards.”