Grasses, common to central NSW, could also prove the key to combatting climate change in the south-west of Victoria, according to one prominent Dean's Marsh prime lamb producer.
Last year's Bob Hawke Landcare Award winner, Andrew Stewart, Yan Yan Gurt, was among 80 participants who attended a recent workshop by NSW regenerative farmer Colin Seis.
The workshop was facilitated through the Geelong Landcare Network, supported by the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority.
Mr Seis, Winona, central NSW, developed pasture cropping in 1993, after a 1979 bushfire left him with no income.
His approach was to grow more plants and more diversity.
Instead of sowing into a bare paddock, he complimented existing pastures with warm-season C4 varieties.
"Instead of sowing pasture, why not renovate the grassland?" Mr Seis said.
Mr Stewart and wife Jill run a 232 hectare prime lamb property near Deans March, in the foothills of southern Victoria's Otway Ranges.
He said there was a place for warm season, C4 grasses and plants in the south-west, particularly as the climate changed.
C4 grasses and plants include wallaby and kangaroo grass, maize, sugarcane, sorghum and pearl millet .
"The whole idea of adding C4 plants to your pasture system is a really good one to try and increase the biodiversity into your pastures and also build resilience into your farming system," he said.
It was hoped to return native species, which would respond to summer rain.
"There have been native pastures in the area but can we find some - particularly the C4 native pastures that can respond to summer rains?
"We wouldn't just be throwing away our traditional pasture species, I would see it as being a combination of both and marrying the C4 native pastures species into our system."
Long-range climate forecasts for southern Victoria showed there would be less overall rainfall, but more in summer.
"If we can get these C4 plants, which are summer growers, into our system, I think that could be an advantage in terms of ground cover and providing a good, nutritious feed.
Mr Seis had found native plants had good grazing qualities, were deep, and could cope with low phosphorous levels, while being more efficient users of water.
Mr Stewart said there were not many widespread areas of native plants, like kangaroo and wallaby grass, left in the south-west.
"Colin said some of the grasses he is growing up there would have been in our area too, pre-European settlement.
"He is at the point of harvesting some of those grasses."
Mr Stewart said the family property now had 18 per cent woody vegetation coverage and it was now time to focus on getting biodiversity in pastures.
"We can look at a cross-section of our farm and say we have got good biodiversity in the overstory of woody vegetation and good biodiversity in the pasture system."
He said the plan was to look at increasing the biodiversity of the pasture base, to end up with a more productive and resilient system.
"We have been putting some multi-species crop, we are working through that in some of our poorer pastures.
"We will do that for a couple of years to improve the conditions for sowing a new crop into and to get rid of some of the unwanted weeds such as Bent grass, by grazing these cover crops."
Once the paddocks were in a condition to sow down, he said the family would be looking at a perennial pasture system involving grasses, legumes and forbs.
"We have to be mindful that our conditions are different, so we have to adapt some of those ideas."
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.
