8/9/2019 Never let paddocks go naked

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THE LAND Thursday, July 24, 2008 49

WELLINGTON pasture croppers,the Maurice family, have beenworking hard to create a diverseecosystem and theyre being paiddividends through increased soilcarbon levels.

Rick and Brenda Maurice, theirson, Angus, and his wife, Lucy,run a 2500-hectare cattle andsheep trading, and croppingoperation based at Gillinghall,Spicers Creek, north-east ofWellington.

They trade in livestock toenable them to adequately matchstocking rate with carryingcapacity according to seasonalchange, and have been pastureand no-kill cropping farmingconcepts that involved plantingzero-till winter cereal cropsdirectly into summer-activenative perennial pastures.

The operation was one of 47farms across five States that tookpart in the Biodiversity in Grainand Graze (BiGG) nationalproject, which started in 2005 toanalyse biodiversity in a mixedfarming system.

The BiGG project wasco-ordinated by Grain and Graze,which was itself run from 2003until June this year as acollaborative partnershipbetween Meat and Livestock

Australia, the Grains Researchand Development Corporation,Land and Water Australia, andAustralian Wool Innovation.

Grain and Graze nationalco-ordinator, Dr Richard Price,said the BiGG project was a stepbeyond looking at the impact ofagriculture on biodiversity,instead studying benefits ofbiodiversity on agriculture.

The work looked atinvertebrates, birds and fungi onfour different land types on eachfarm, he said.

Those land types werecropping, pasture, rotationalpastures, and native vegetation.

About 300,000 bugs wereindividually caught, put under amicroscope, and categorised as

part of the exercise.

What we certainly learned isbiodiversity does providebenefits for agriculturalproduction systems and it doesthis by helping to maintainhealthy soils, he said.

It also does it through certain

beneficial bugs and birds, which

quite often act as predators topests, Dr Price said.

For the Maurice family, the mostinteresting finding from theirinvolvement in the project was

the level of soil carbon underdifferent land uses.The level of soil carbon in the

remnant vegetation area was upabout four per cent, while ourcropping paddocks were still onlyabout 1.5pc, Angus Maurice said.

That showed us what weremissing out on and what we canaim for.

We believe the only way to getup to that level is throughperennial grasses.

We dont believe its possiblethrough a cropping program

alone, and through normalconservation farming.

Under those systems thegrasses arent there.

The no-kill cropping and pasturecropping was introduced sixyears ago.

The pasture could be grazedright up to the point of sowingand stock could be put back onthe pasture in-crop, and afterharvest, to graze stubble andgreen perennial grasses.

Biological activity is a lot higherif youve always got somethinggrowing, Mr Maurice said.

The difference with no-killcropping was a dry-sown cropwithout herbicide or fertiliserinputs a cheap crop to growwith just $20 a hectare of seedinput costs.

The crop this year cereal rye was dry-sown during theestablished pastures dormantphase, giving the crop a goodopportunity to out-compete weeds.

Last years wheat crop was

planted using three methods no-till cropping, pasture croppingand no-kill cropping.

After comparing gross marginsthey found a return of $300.60/hafor no-till, $339.40/ha for pasturecropping, and $225/ha with thelow-input no-kill croppingalternative.

Mr Maurice said the mainadvantages of the latter twooptions, which were twocontinually improving systems,were grazing yield over summerand low input costs.

As the systems and grassesimprove, the soil biology improves,which gives your crops a chanceto improve as well, he said.

He said no-kill cropping workedbest to rest country in the seasonafter successive no-till crops,where weeds had been wellcontrolled during that moreintensive cropping phase.

The Maurices used a disc seeder

with an Acra-Plant V-slice doubledisc sowing unit, Agro ploughsingle coulter leading the doubledisc, and a 9.3-metre MorrisMagnum chisel plow bar.

They planted on 30-centimetrerow spacings to enable them toeasily go through high amounts ofgrass and residue without hair-pinning thanks to the frontcoulter, which allowed the seedto get through the grass load andinto the soil profile. Contact Angus Maurice,(02) 6846 6393.

Never let paddocks go nakedFamilys nokill pasturecropping plan

The level of soil carbonin the remnant vegetationarea was up about fourper cent, while ourcropping paddocks werestill only about 1.5pc.That showed us whatwere missing out on andwhat we can aim for.

Angus Maurice

Biodiversity BestBiodiversity Best Gillinghall, Spicers Creek, 2500-

hectare cattle trading and no-killcropping

Trading in stock is an easy way tomatch stocking rate to pastureavailability

Perennial grasses are being used toboost soil carbon levels

Grazing yield and low input costs arethe big winners for perennial pastureand no-kill cropping cycles

By AMYLAWSON

SHEEP and cattle trading isbeing used to improveecology from grazing

management and promoteperennial grasslands at theMaurice familys Wellingtondistrict property.

Rick and Brenda Maurice,their son, Angus, and his wife,Lucy, run a 2500-hectare cattle,sheep and cropping operationbased at Gillinghall, SpicersCreek, north-east of Wellington.

They have a flexible livestocktrading arrangement and have620 mixed-breed finishing

heifers and 2000 White Suffolk-cross lambs.

Angus Maurice (pictured withLucy in a cereal rye crop sownover pasture) said they time-control grazed and in reducingtheir paddock sizes, they hadmaintained square-shapedpaddocks to avoid removingcropping efficiencies.

Trading allows us to beflexible and we can increaseour stocking rate over summeronce our crops are harvestedand pastures are growing, hesaid.

Trading up at Wellington

Profit WinnerProfit WinnerAFTER five years of ground-breakingrural research, the innovative Grain andGraze program released its contributionto the future of Australian mixed farmingat its national forum recently.The Grain and Graze evaluation reportsaid producers who adoptedrecommended practices claimed anaverage increase in profitability of nineper cent.

What made this figure particularlyencouraging was it was achieved during aseries of drought years.In addition, the Biodiversity in Grain andGraze (BiGG) was recognised for itscontribution to environmental excellence,sustainability and education, winning the2008 Banksia Category Award for Landand Biodiversity announced last week.While the program is winding up in itscurrent form, Meat and LivestockAustralia and the Grains Research andDevelopment Corporation are jointlyscoping the next phase of Grain andGraze, building on the lessons learntduring the past five years.

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