Reaping the rewards of being a Nature-led business
I was at Brunette Downs last week for a chat on our approach to sustainability with one of our stakeholders.
We stood in the paddock talking about how our sustainable grazing practice is setting up our pasture to have a strong response after rainfall. We saw beautiful big tussocks with dry matter mixed with green growth within it, mulching over the soil around them with almost no bare ground and at least 5 different herb and legume species scattered amongst them. We talked about all the green grass shooting that we had seen on the drive - a great example of healthy pasture response to rain. And then we got back into the car and my host says to me “Mate… we haven’t had any rain”. All the green we were seeing in the pasture was being fed from moisture held in the soil from the previous season. An amazing thing that I’ve never seen happen in my time on the Barkly.
Understanding Pasture Growth First, we have had a great season this year off the back of a pretty good season the previous year. The lakes are as full as we’ve ever seen them and the landscape is flourishing. It’s been wonderful to experience. But growing grass without rain… that’s special. To understand what’s going on, we first need to understand what drives growth in our pastures.
Our grass needs both moisture AND warmth to grow. If it rains, but it’s too cold, it won’t grow and conversely, if it’s warm but it has no moisture, it can’t grow. Coming out of the dry season, the temperature lifts in about October, the grass starts to wake up and we wait for the first rain to stimulate the first flushes of green growth. We usually start to see this with the first storms in the build-up, usually arriving in about November or December and eventually we hit our green date in late December or January. Our grass kicks into action and the tussocks put on as much bulk as they can over January to March, building the energy they need to set seed and replenish their reserves held in their stems and roots. Grasses start to hay off in about April when temperatures start to drop. From here the soil cools down, the rain stops, and our grass goes to sleep, waiting for the next season of warmth and rain.
The Impact of Sustainable Practices What we’ve seen this year is our grasses waking up as it starts to warm up in late September, early October, to find their soil already with a good moisture profile and they’ve been able to start their growth a couple of months early. Yes, the moisture is in the soil already because of the great season, where we saw 90th percentile rainfall across most of our estate, but there’s more at play here. What we are seeing is the result of the great work the Operations team and our skilled Rangelands Officers have been building since 2018 when we first started developing our satellite assisted forage budget tools, followed by the development of our sustainable stocking model in 2019. Together, these practices have helped us to better manage how our cattle are interacting with the landscape and they’ve assisted us to set up our pastures to be in the best shape at the end of the dry season to respond to the rainfall we receive in the wet. By focusing on leaving grass in the paddock, we have built more resilient tussocks with more developed root systems. These tussocks have in turn, fed into the soil they grow in, facilitating greater moisture penetration, building carbon which acts as a sponge, holding more moisture in the soil and increasing the effectiveness of the rainfall we receive.
Extending the “Longevity of Green” What we are seeing at play here is the principle of extending the ‘Longevity of Green’. I recently connected with renowned soil scientist Walter Jehne. We talked a lot about the longevity of green principle, its value to soil health, nature, climate and cattle production and what we can do to extend it in our pastures. Imagine my excitement when I see we already have the first stages of it happening right now! Now, to be fair, this is not happening everywhere and yes it has been boosted by the great seasons we’ve had. But what we are seeing is encouragement that we are heading in the right direction and we’re getting a hint of the potential of what our Nature-led production system can do. A Win for Nature and Production By extending the longevity of green in our pastures through facilitating green growth in October, this first green growth comes through mixed with dry matter, enabling our cows to slowly increase their plane of nutrition before the wet season arrives. This means that when the wet season growth kicks in, their systems will be essentially pre-set to make better use of the new green growth. This should put them in better condition for calving, enable them to build condition and sets them up for getting back into calf more readily. By being a Nature-led business and designing our grazing program around what Nature needs, we are not only building health and resilience into the landscape with biodiversity and climate benefits, we’re getting great production outcomes for our cattle too, which is one of the foundation values that attract our customers to Westholme. Nature is truly amazing.
