Pasture walk showcases pasture trial network and BIGG trials
On 17 November BIGG hosted a pasture walk at the Pasture Trial Network (PTN) site near Angaston attracting a solid turnout of 18 farmers, agronomists and consultants.
Attendees heard from Craig Davis (Crop Consulting Services) and Tim Prance (T Prance Rural Consulting) discuss the Pasture Trial Network (PTN) trials - Craig Davis provided the following overview of the day's PTN trial discussion:
The Pasture Trial network trial field walk on the 17th November saw a great turnout with advisors & growers present and keen to get informed about the PTN project and the last two years of trials (Gomersal in 2024 and Angaston this year). The results for Gomersal (and all the PTN data can be found at www.pasturetrials.com.au and https://ptntool.mla.com.au/#/
Brett Nietschke (BIGG Technical Facilitator) also gave an update on BIGG’s two long-term pasture projects:
Multi-species perennial pastures
- Trials are being conducted at Marananga to determine the productivity of various perennial based multi-species treatments.
- The importance of getting species off to a strong start and particularly through their first summer has been highlighted. This is because perennial species establish slowly (compared to annuals), therefore issues such as moisture stress, competition from weeds and overgrazing can significantly reduce plant density and diversity of the mix.
Pasture recovery with containment feeding
- Trials are being conducted at Flaxman Valley and Keyneton to quantify the benefits of paddocks which have high feed on offer (FOO) and ground cover going into the break of the season, compared to paddocks with low FOO and groundcover.
- To date, the high FOO paddocks have produced better outcomes well into the growing season, including having higher grazing value, groundcover and more favourable pastures species, compared to the low FOO paddocks.