Brownhill Cup Recipient on display

By: Mark Kesby, Projects Officer
March 1, 2010

Sam and Megan Clifton were awarded the Brownhill Cup in 2008 for their efforts in addressing erosion and soil health. They have taken a lot of second class farming country out of cropping back to native and tropical grasses, with the remaining country being zero tilled for forage crops. “Our mixed farm with misshaped paddocks and small scale have made grain cropping very marginal” Sam said. “We are much better to concentrate on pastures for livestock supplemented by a bit of forage cropping”.

Normally a field day is held on the Brownhill Cup recipient’s property but, for a variety of reasons, it didn’t happen in this case – until now.

Following the good summer rain, a field day has been organised for Wednesday the 10th of March on the Clifton’s property “Penalva” in the Purlewaugh district.

The day will begin with Sam outlining the changes they have made to the operation including the mistakes and lessons learned along the way. Their modest converted planter will be on display and the pastures and cropping areas will be inspected. The results from topdressing with nitrogen will compared with control strips.

Three top-line experts will also speak. Lester McCormick, Technical Specialist Pastures with NSW Industry & Investment, will discuss grazing management for tropical pastures. Tropical grasses can be difficult to manage given their high growth rates and earlier maturity compared to temperate grasses. To get the best use out of any pasture species, it is important to understand its growth, maturity and reproductive cycle. 

Grazing management needs to balance the requirements for animal production with the needs of the plant for long term survival. For example, grass pastures that are grazed too frequently will lose the deep roots that go below one metre that enable them to survive long dry spells. Tropical grasses are often oversown with annual winter legume. For good establishment in the autumn, clovers require a reasonably open pasture sward to allow light penetration to the germinating clovers. This may be a problem this season where large volumes of mature dry grass can inhibit clover establishment in the autumn.

There can be difficulties utilizing tropical grasses in years such as the current one. Sudden large rainfall events can result in a huge bulk of grass that matures and loses feed value.

One of the ways to utilize this bulk of dry feed can be use of supplements. Brett Littler who is a Livestock Officer with the Department will give advice on the feed value of tropical grasses and the most cost effective supplementary feeding strategies. 

Tropical grasses are very nitrogen hungry. Often annual legumes are not able to supply sufficient nitrogen for maximum growth or quality. More and more growers are using sulphate of ammonia to increase production of tropical grass pastures (a subject of a previous Down to Earth column). Bill Manning, District Agronomist with I & I will discuss the role of nitrogen fertilizers in tropical pastures. Many Farmers are concerned about the potential risks of nitrogen loss to the atmosphere (volatilisation) when spreading urea or Sulfate of Ammonia on pastures (or crops). Bill will outline the risk factors and relative risks of the different products.

The day will commence at 8:30 for a 9:00 am start and conclude with a BBQ lunch. RSVP to Lorraine (6741 8375) for catering purposes.

To get there, take the Mullaley to Tambar Springs road, turn onto the Wyuna Rd 3km north of Tambar and follow the field day signs. From Coonabarabran, take the Quirindi road. Turn left onto Sanson’s Lane 6km past Purlewaugh and follow the signs. I look forward to seeing you there.