After a difficult period of drought and bushfire across the Hunter and Manning Great Lakes, Hunter Local Land Services has prepared a series of free resources to support local cattle producers.
Hunter Local Land Services held four workshops across the Manning distric in early Autumn, to assist landholders with bushfire recovery strategies. The workshops covered the issues of pasture management for beef production and improved farm profitability.
Those workshops have now been converted into a video and podcast series, ready for local producers.
Albert Mullen, Extension and Advisory Officer in Sustainable Agriculture, said that following the catastrophic bushfires over summer, pasture management was critical and encouraged producers to take advantage of the recent rainfall and break in the season to get farm business back on track.
"Pastures are the lifeblood of any livestock enterprise and how we manage these pastures will dictate cost of production per hectare," said Albert Mullen.
"Some of the key points from the workshops included putting recent replacement female prices into perspective for those understocked and rebuilding using home grown replacements as a 'mix and match' strategy to average out costs and to provide adequate nutrient to achieve the best outcomes.
"The longer term outlooks for pasture growth and to fill winter and dry season gaps in feed availability were discussed through a pasture portfolio system that identified energy needs of stock numbers and available pasture. Concepts from forage, perennial and winter pasture systems were slotted together over a period of 12 months to address individual farm climates, topography and rainfall."
Neil Moss from SciBus works extensively with the dairy industry and presented information around livestock nutrition with energy and protein requirements of different classes of livestock and types of fodder/supplementary sources to meet production requirements.
Mr Moss explained to landholders "Pasture portfolios is a mixture of pastures across your farm to fill the various energy gaps and has been adapted to this system for a beef herd over a typical year. With most beef producers now targeting performance based markets that have key targets for weight and fat, this information will assist you with cost structures and profitability."
Nikki Henderson is a beef herd consultant from Pinnacle Ag and presented on herd rebuilding and heifer requirements at the workshops.
Ms. Henderson said "Critical weights and action targets are key factors for successful herd rebuilding. With most producers understocked from drought actions and high restocking prices, home grown replacements are now important."
The video presentations from the workshops are now available via our youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC7J5DHnrm61hSx4rPfm9akrkY8lT0-Kt
You can download the presentations as podcasts by visiting https://www.buzzsprout.com/1028284
For more seasonal advice, or support from our team please contact us on 1300 795 299.
