Warrenbayne farmers Serenity Hill and Kirsten Larsen say this year will be one of "fencing and trees" as they further move towards a sustainable paddock-to-plate lamb operation.
The pair run 150 Australian White ewes and agist cattle on the 168-hectare property near Benalla.
"The property has been in my family since the late 1940s; my parents had Merino sheep and Angus cattle," Ms Hill said.
"We want to do farming that is good for the climate and builds ecosystems; we are trying to retrofit the property to make that viable."
That involved moving to regenerative farming practices.
"A lot of this is what strategies do we have to make it viable to make money, and a big part of that is the direct marketing," she said.
Warrenbayne markets through the Open Food Network (OFN), set up by Ms Larsen and Ms Hill in 2012.
It's an online platform which operates as a digital, direct marketing shopfront for small producers.
The duo have also embarked on a big tree-planting program, which gave rise to the property name, Pukawidgee, which means "sit in the shade" in the local Aboriginal language.
Ms Larsen said 1000 trees were planted last winter, and they expected to do the same this year.
"We have collected a whole lot of acacia seed which we are using to try and get a lot more tree coverage across the property," she said.
That will be coupled with grazing practices, which encourage pasture recovery.
By creating smaller paddocks and putting all the animals in one mob, grasses enjoyed longer recovery time after grazing.
They grow deeper roots; rainwater absorbs rather than washing the soil away, therefore plants stay greener and softer for longer.
Plants with deeper roots produced more forage, more ground cover to protect the soil, more carbon exchange occurred, transferring it from a problem in the atmosphere to a valuable soil solution.
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They said they hoped to start growing out trade cattle to supplement the sheep.
"At the moment, we have too much grass and not enough animals to eat it," Ms Hill said.
The property has a perennial native pasture base with microlena, stipas, red grass, wallaby grass and some kangaroo grass.
"We are moving across to a full Australian White self-replacing flock, using rams from Danny Teskera at Roslynmead West [at Echuca]," she said.
Ms Larsen said the Australian Whites appeared to work very well in the regenerative system, as they were "easy care and fattened quickly on grass".
"We are using the grazing to get the nutrient cycling happening, so the grass grows and is available for the animals without inputs," she said.
The first lambs are turned off at seven-months-old, with the bigger and older animals going progressively during the year.
Pukawidgee was focused on breeding up its Australian White ewes, with an eventual aim of running a flock of between 400-500.
"We send off a trailer load of lambs every quarter," Ms Hill said.
"We are pretty sure we have a good product, we just need to get it to our customers."
Lamb was sold locally and in Melbourne.
"Our butcher said they are perfect, from the point of view of colour and proportion of fat," she said.
"You also have a backstrap, which is similar to a rib eye in a steer."
Over the longer term, Ms Hill and Ms Larsen said they hoped to experiment with more collective farming, as regenerative practices were more labour intensive.
"Are there ways of being more flexible, where more people can be involved without having to take on enormous amounts of debt?" Ms Hill said.
"Our experience with OFN is you can dream really big.
Andrew Miller
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
