THE perennial pasture trial at the Battens farm stirred up conversation at the YFIG walk.
The brothers run the Douwana Dorper stud and have planted a mix of perennial pastures as part of a Northern Agricultural Catchment Council trial, which is looking at best land use for long-term sustainability.
In the past the paddock was used for cropping but challenging soil conditions and layout meant that the brothers were looking at different uses.
“What we have seen - which is the most exciting thing for us, is the retention of multiple lambs,” Kim Batten said.
“The retention has been really exciting, it is giving us a little bit of a future rather than ripping liming and try to turn it back to cropping.
“It is pretty new but we are excited after the first year.”
Tony Rosser from Great Northern Rural Services said species and paddock selection, as well as usage, were important when making the decision to go into perennial pastures, specie and paddock selection as well as the plans for use.
“If you are looking at paddocks that you want to tidy up for stock, just plant as much as you can and as much diversity as you can but if you are looking at a dual cropping-pasture paddock, go for wide row spacings and intercrop.
“When grazing the paddocks, keep an eye on paddock size and stock numbers - if you can’t graze it down to within a hand’s width of the soil in four to five days there aren’t enough animals in it,” he said.
“If you keep the grazing pressure on them that way you’ve always got fresh feed.”
