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SARDI builds size and quality of farm feed base
A display of forage shrub species will be featured by the South Australian Research and Development Institute at the Yorke Peninsula Field Days next week (September 27, 28, 29) along with information on the use of shrubs and other pasture plants which make up the farm feed base.
A focus of SARDI’s Livestock and Farming Systems division is to build size and quality of the farm feed base by selecting and breeding more productive, nutritious and persistent forages that make up and identify ways for livestock to make best use them.
One aspect of this effort is to bolster forage supplies during periods of feed shortage such as autumn in medium to low rainfall regions.
SARDI Senior Agricultural Officer Hugh Drum and Senior Research Officer, Pasture Improvement Greg Sweeney have been testing ways to incorporate forage shrubs such as Old Man Saltbush into grazing systems as drought tolerant, perennial and environmentally-friendly feed sources.
This work is sponsored by the Coorong District LAP Committee and funded by the federal Caring for Our Country Program.
The project is assessing shrubs species mixtures, companion forages such as grasses, grazing management and feed supplements for higher animal productivity, and better protection of vulnerable soils. A shrub based pasture system has clear value in lifting the productivity of saline soils, stabilizing fragile soils and lowering recharge and water tables.
In the past, farmers have tried shrub monocultures like Old Man Saltbush or Tagasaste with mixed results. The limited variety in these shrub stands exposes grazing livestock without relief to high concentrations of minerals and unpleasant tastes common to many shrubs.
Managing forage shrubs to maintain or improve livestock conditions is tricky. Livestock nutritional requirements, their choices of plants and experience critically determine the effectiveness of these shrub-based systems.
Success requires a broad view of the way livestock choose their diets, and combine different species from forage mixtures. Greater plant diversity particularly using a mix of shrub species may allow the livestock to increase shrubs intake.
The approaches have been strongly influenced by the knowledge emerging from the ground-breaking Future Farming Industries CRC ’ENRICH’ project, led by SARDI’s Dr Jason Emms, an expert in the field.
While plant diversity offers one approach, the SARDI team have joined a national effort in the ENRICH program to select more palatable and nutritious Old Man Saltbush varieties for a next generation of shrub pasture system where livestock will happily graze both shrubs and pasture in a more balanced way with reduced risks of overgrazing the need for supplements.
Caption
Autumn grazing of Old Man Saltbush stand at Mount Russell, Coomandook. (For high resolution image, click on image)
