Using perennial pastures to keep groundcover, trap carbon and eliminate run-off is one way to do this according to Department of Industry and Investment’s (DII) Luke Beange, and was the focus of a field day held at ‘Wongalee’ south of town on Monday.

Hosted by the Central West Catchment Management Authority (CWCMA) in conjunction with the DII, Bell River Catchment Committee and EverGraze, the event covered topics such as grazing management, water and

nutrient cycling, fencing/subdivision and plant biodiversity.

Mr Beange said there was currently a big interest in perennial pastures.

“Perennial pastures are more sustainable in the long term and have a better chance of maintaining ground cover,” Mr Beange said.

“When you have more groundcover you have a better chance of catching water when it rains while also trapping carbon in the soil which is the only chance on a farm at maintaining high levels.”

While the need for these pastures was highlighted, producers were also being urged not to overgraze them.

“Grazing management was a big theme of the day,” Mr Beange said.

“The length of rest of a paddock is crucial and is one of the things James (speaker) is concerned with today.

“The only way you can stop overgrazing is by having more paddocks and the only way to have more paddocks is to have more fences.”

The quantity and quality of a pasture was also questioned by both the farmers and agronomists with a lot of talk centering on measuring what is in the pasture.

“We spent a lot of time going into detail on two of the main things to determine quality -digestibility and energy.

“For digestibility we looked at the diversity of plants in the paddock and talked about having a mix that would make

the animal as robust as possible.

“Livestock need energy in their food to put on and maintain body weight, so we also looked at energy levels in the pastures.

“To show the quantity we cut the pasture last week and sent it away for analysis and were able to show there was three tonnes/hectare dry matter in the paddock and then measured how much it was grazed which was only one tonne/hectare.

“That means two tonnes/hectare will remain on the ground as cover.”

Another field day will be hosted at Yeoval on October 30. For more information contact the CWCMA or DII.