Last Wednesday the 13 March, we held our first Rokewood open trial site inspection for the year. These events will be held regularly through out the season, so please join us.

The tour started with the DLF Seed’s Cleancrop™ demonstration post grazing, discussing the season that was. Rokewood experienced a dry start in November, followed by 136 mm in December, it slowly starting to dry out in January, with only 1 mm in February! As most in the South West may remember, we were also inundated by cabbage moths and butterflies in January with many seeing nothing like it before. The insecticides couldn’t keep up and therefore we had big yield losses in our brassica’s. On top of this, the black field crickets came in early and fast, doing plenty of damage before baiting could occur. Lessons were learnt on organizing bait before the busy summer period so you can quickly bait when crickets are immature to slow population growth and numbers for next year.

The group then moved to RAGT’s sorghum and brassica trials where it was discussed how to safely graze them or cut sorghum for silage or hay. The advantage of sorghum over brassicas is that they have minimal pest threats and therefore didn’t have any yield losses from pest damage over summer like the turnips and forage rape. However, the nutritional quality (metabolisable energy and crude protein) of sorghum is less than forage brassica’s.

Our discussion then turned towards the future where Southern Farming Systems announced three new trials to be sown in 2024.  The trials are investigating:

1.     Hyper performing pastures for carbon accumulation. Which pasture variety/mix or management will maximise above and below ground biomass to potentially build soil organic carbon.

2.     Nitrogen management in pastures. What is the best nitrogen management system required to maximise grass tillering and biomass production? Focusing on nitrogen fertiliser strategies vs sub clover.

3.     Drought rebuilder (first responders). What species to sow for a source of quick feed and to let perennial pastures recover? Is there value in sowing dry or is it less risky to wait for the break?

If anyone has any suggestions for these trials, or any varieties or mixes they’d like to see, please get in touch with Jessie Wettenhall or M: 0447 848 815.  These trials are funded by Meat and Livestock Australia.

By Jessie Wettenhall, Research & Extension Officer