Graziers revitalise pines to pastures

Clay and Patrice Clear both hail from fourth and fifth generation grazing families, near Mila and Delegate, within the Snowy Monaro region of NSW.

Together they purchased their first property, Woodburn in the Mila district, 10 years ago. The 203-hectare property was once dotted with pine trees, but now it sustains a commercial Angus breeding herd and prime lamb operation.

An agronomist of eight years, Mrs Clear said it was her professional background that gave the couple confidence to tackle the long-term project of restoring the country back to improved pastures suitable for grazing.

"Having my background in that agronomy space gave us a lot of confidence to work with the pine plantation country," Mrs Clear said.

"We were guinea pigs in the situation, taking on an established pine plantation and trying to return it to grazing country. But through a lot of hard work, perseverance and just utter determination, we got there.

"Now, 10 years on, we are at a point where we are exactly where we envisaged we would be, with at least 90 per cent of the place now pasture improved."

At the time the Clears purchased Woodburn, the pine trees were about 15 feet high, and the low-lying country did not support the pine trees very well.

"Luckily for us, the trees pushed out well, we windrowed and burnt the trees, and then we fenced the property according to soil type and aspect," Mrs Clear said.

"We kept the paddocks around the same size with a vision of implementing a rotational grazing system. The beauty of it was we had a clean canvas and we got to shape the property from scratch, just how we wanted it.

"We left rows of pine trees along each fence line, to provide protection from the weather, from whichever way it was coming in, which created a really nice micro-environment within each paddock.

"The benefits of being able to shelter and protect livestock and pastures have been really noticeable, especially in our lambing percentages, and also for our pastures this year.

"The country was really starting to dry up in our area during early November, and there was minimal ground cover, as things started to look like drought.

"I thought we might have been pushing it, in terms of our stocking rate, and our pastures were still just that bit ahead. I put this down to the protection from the wind, and we had some really windy conditions in November."

She said that there were a few interactions happening on Woodburn that wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for the pine trees.

"Seeing these benefits, we are big advocates for wind-breaks, shelterbelts and even biodiversity corridors."

To establish pastures, they started out with a fodder crop situation, a typical rotation being a fodder rape.

"I think on the back of having that mineralisation and break down of the soil, coupled with the potash that was left behind from burning, it worked really well, and we had some cracking fodder rape crops.

"Depending on the slope of the country, we only did the one initial cultivation, followed by the rape, and then we went back into a wheat, depending on weed pressures, or in some paddocks, we would go back into a fodder rape, eventually going back into permanent pastures, which were based on rye grass, fescue and sub-clover pastures.

"More recently, as we have gone into our second pasture phase, we have incorporated herbs and clovers together, using a mix of chicory, plantain, white clover and sub-clover, to have those high performing finishing pastures."

The Clears try to purchase cattle that have been locally bred, their nucleus breeding herd is based on genetics that have been proven in their area.

"Clay and I like to work on the basis of 'start where you want to finish', so we have tried to go in and buy quality cattle from the outset.

"We now have Hazeldean Angus breeding cows by Rosskin Angus bulls.

"We have been using Sparta Angus bulls over these cows, as well as Murdoch Bibbenluke Angus bulls, which are based on Rennylea Angus bloodlines."

The Clears took another big leap in 2021 when the opportunity arose to purchase 324ha from Patrice's family. This place is called Karinya.

Mrs Clear said purchasing Karinya was a very different experience for them, stepping into a property that already had infrastructure provided challenges in itself, compared with having the opportunity to develop a farm from scratch. She said coming from multiple generations of graziers, it is interesting to notice how the focus of a productive operation has changed.

"Our outlook from days gone by is of our grandfathers who loved the top price in the markets, but the top price isn't everything, and it is not an indicator of how well your farm is performing, in our opinion.

"I think we have got to get back to dollars per hectare, and look at how you arrive at the price you received.

"For us, to meet the pressures of the cost of living, interest rates and the amount of debt you have to go into as a young family, we have got to have everything humming within our system, and control the things we can. Because we obviously don't have much pull on market prices.

"We are less focused on finding that extra 10 cents per kilogram for our steers, and more trying to manage things we can control within our system.

"Constantly tweaking and making sure we have our finger on the pulse with those efficiencies within the system - which is quite the challenge.

"So we are concentrating on things we have a knowledge base around, and incorporating a more sustainable approach to production.

"As well as focusing on the challenge of acquiring a quality nucleus of breeding stock, that are performing and converting feed.

"I feel this is the bigger picture of sustainability, to have animals with the ability to convert feed efficiently, and achieve a quicker turn-off time."