2020 spring update: pasture and lamb bonanza
2020 rainfall has been consistently close to or above average each month ensuring optimum pasture growth and ewe fertility ensuring a record high lamb marking and weaning percentage.
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Unique insight into Merino breeding and pastoral history
“A Twentieth Century Shepherd – The letters of E.H.B. Lefroy” demonstrate the activities and passion of a remarkable Australian who devoted his life to helping others in a science based quest for a more productive and profitable pastoral Merino wool industry.
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Messaging on minimum pasture ground cover quantity is inconsistent and often ignores ecosystem functions
Livestock farmers are being given mixed messages around minimum pasture levels that preserve pasture plant resilience and ecosystem functions.
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Victoria’s rural road speed guidelines ignore wildlife existence
Victoria’s state government departments responsible for maximum speed limits on minor rural roads and safety and welfare of wildlife do not recognize vehicles travelling to fast to avoid collisions with wildlife on minor rural roads, are the cause of an increasing number of wildlife road kills and injuries.
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Ruminant methane decision pending – GWP100 versus GWPstar
The European Commission is about to settle on a new policy on methane which could have profound implications for ruminant livestock agriculture.
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Phosphorus fertiliser an advantage for specific native grass species
Some native grass species will respond to increased plant available phosphorus, but best practice grazing management is critical to ensure their persistence when fertiliser is applied.
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No meat interview demonstrates “go with the flow” journalism
Too many journalists fail to ask their on-air guests questions about generalisations made, in this case about different types of meat production in Australia versus overseas.
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Summer/autumn rain brings pasture fungi bonanza
Summer/autumn 2020 received the highest rainfall for the period since 2012. The consequences for biodiversity and pastures were enormous.
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Avoidable wildlife road kills continue unabated
Road kills of native animals are avoidable on minor rural roads in the Macedon Ranges and adjacent shires. To achieve this traffic speeds on these roads must be legally limited to a maximum of 40 km/hr.
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Regenerative agriculture’s version of science creates division between farmers
In part two of a three article series on regenerative agriculture Patrick Francis examines why the concept is creating unnecessary divisions amongst Australia’s broadacre farmers.
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What makes a regenerative agriculture farmer
Regen Ag has emerged over the last five years under the misapprehension of providing a more holistic methodology for profitable farming while improving ecosystem functions compared to conventional or agricultural science based farming.
Read moreNeil Black western Victoria 1839
The excerpts from Neil Black’s diary relate to Western Victoria’s landscapes, pastures, wildlife, livestock, animal husbandry, labour, wages, living conditions and bushfires in 1840.
Read moreJames Bonwick Western Victoria 1857
Find out what Victoria’s pastoral landscapes, vegetation and wildlife were like before pastoralism. James Bonwick provides an insight in 1857
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Feeds and husbandry to reduce ruminant methane emissions
Ruminant livestock industries are under pressure to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and strategies exist to help do this.
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Soil carbon trading credits questionable on perennial pasture farms
The challenge for agricultural science surrounding increasing or maintaining soil organic carbon level, is to provide farmers with knowledge that gives them confidence that the practice changes being recommended will achieve the desired outcomes under their individual soil type, climate, enterprise and business circumstances.
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Seasonal Update Spring 2019
Our phase two pasture renovation program currently in place is producing pastures which are providing us with significantly improved pasture quantity and quality year round, lower ruminant greenhouse gas emissions, higher lamb meat eating quality, and outstanding biodiversity habitat, under a trend for lower spring and autumn rainfall over the last 20 years.
Read moreAg science versus regenerative ag
Let’s work together to understand how and where regenerative agriculture works, identify possible problems, and work out the economic benefits.
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Long-haired rat story enchanting
Learning about the biology of the long-haired rat is the key to this book’s intrigue, because the long-haired rat took decades to scientifically identify as the unique Australian rodent, Mus villosissius.
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Soil carbon – US research points to plant diversity and soil pore size as keys to storage
Soils from restored prairie ecosystems, with many different plant species, had many more pores of the right size for stable carbon storage than did a pure stand of switchgrass.
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Can dingoes contribute to ecological restoration of the WA rangelands?
David Pollock contends there is an argument in some pastoral areas such as where Wooleen station is, for using dingoes as a means to reduce uncontrolled grazing pressure of kangaroos and feral goats because the station livestock carrying capacities are so low due to land degradation that the pastoral businesses cannot afford to contribute to the costs of dog control.
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Book review The Wooleen Way
Pollock’s insights into the connections between ecosystem functions, pastures and grazing management, put him into a rare group of outstanding farm/station ecosystem managers, observers, and influencers in the industry.
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Sustainable Intensification of agriculture – for food and nutritional security
According to 2019 Farrer Medalist, Professor Tim Reeves, agricultural sustainability successes have resulted from the combined efforts of scientists and farmers working together to identify, develop and adapt new technologies and systems to both address continuing challenges to productivity and profitability, and to also seize the new opportunities that continually arise.
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Controlling kangaroos is essential for rangeland resilience
Kangaroos do the most damage to the environment during extended dry periods when perennial grasses are forced to go into dormancy. Australia would probably be better off financially and environmentally if properties were fenced to protect them from kangaroos. Alan Lauder explains why.
Read moreLive sheep export Independent Observers reports inadequate for trade to continue
Live export participants who treat sheep as widgets that must endure a level of suffering and deaths on voyages undermine community trust in the trade. The community won’t accept avoidable sheep deaths on boats as a cost of doing business, its members know that these unavoidable outcomes will end once the sheep live trade from Australia ends.
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Served with a side of science — building community trust in food production
The people that we trust adhere to rules and standards and act with integrity. How people have acted in the past also becomes part of our judgement about whether to trust them.
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Dry summer and chain of ponds
All mixed species perennial pasture paddocks on Moffitts Farm carry a high load of pasture dry matter which when combined with high soil organic carbon (4 – 5% soil organic carbon) means all rainfall (except in extreme rainfall events – over 50mm in 24 hours) is absorbed by the soil sponge. When enough rainfall is absorbed it takes days or weeks to move by sub-surface drainage to replenish the creek ponds (springs).
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Organic versus inorganic fertilisers’ impacts on soil health
In a US comparison after 12 years applying organic or inorganic fertiliser to a continuous crop rotation manure is the fertiliser that supports better soil quality by improving almost all soil properties.
Read moreDreaming of a more equitable Australia via a culture of compassion
Hugh McKay – Do you dream as I dream of a kinder, more compassionate, more generous, more equitable Australia?
Read moreWA on-farm trial with perennial grasses to boost soil carbon
The potential opportunity for carbon storage in WA sandy soil on the research trail farm near Wagin is more likely to be below 10cm because of the perennial grasses deeper root systems compared to annual grasses.
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Sweden’s largest single source of consumed energy is biomass
Sweden achieved its EU renewable energy obligation for 2020 way ahead of time in 2012. It is already well on the way in 2019 to meeting its 2030 renewable energy share and GHG emission reduction target.
Read moreMurray Elliott chronicles Merino breeding’s enlightenment
“Merino Sheep Breeding” by Murray Elliott is a story that had to be told and few if any other players could write it as well as Elliott who was involved for more than 50 years and had the knowledge and passion to influence change in an industry bogged down by tradition and protectionism.
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Fairy ring fungi boost pasture growth and palatability
For pasture enthusiasts fairy rings present an insight into the power of soil biology to influence pasture plant growth.
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Pasture story – sowing multiple perennial species
Multi-species perennial grasses, herbs and legumes are being planted on Moffitts Farm to produce year round green, high quality, and persistent pastures.
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Producing more food from less land
On current trends, the area of land under conservation or protected from commercial uses will exceed that allocated to grazing by the year 2045. By then, both grazing and conservation will each command around 35% of the Australian land area.
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2018 Lambing Images
The 2018 lambing season ended with 143% lambs marked. This result is similar to our experience over the last three years. Our emphasis is on providing ewes with optimum nutrition and lambs with wind chill protection using bulky perennial pastures.
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Seasonal update August 2018
A late autumn break had implications for pasture growth and subsequently the lamb numbers available for Meat Smith. Despite the late break ewe condition was maintained on pastures through mating and pregnancy without supplementary feeding.
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Live sheep exports – Where is evidence WA sheep farmers rely on it for business survival?
The history of sheep farming in WA since 1990 demonstrates farmers have the capacity to find alternative enterprises to live sheep trading.
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Beef cattle farming supporting small holder livelihoods – a case study
In Indonesia the successful GGL/small holder farmer model feeding pineapple and other food processing wastes with multiple livestock options to allow full participation at all levels within the community is simply miraculous.
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Agroforestry systems may play vital role in mitigating climate change
There is a tendency to treat agriculture and forestry separately when addressing natural-resource concerns, but agroforestry offers a set of conservation and production technologies that can help to integrate forestry and agriculture efforts beyond carbon cycles, such as water quality and biological diversity.
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