Grazing Crops – My Experience Scott Welke - Welke Farming Cascades

Welke Farming – Enterprise Overview  12,500 ha - Coomalbidgup to Cascades  Cropping 9,000 ha, Pasture 3,500 ha  Annual Rainfall 500mm (Coomalbidgup) to 350mm (Cascades)  8,500 Ewes (5,500 Merino, 3,000 Crossbred – White Suffolk)  Improved pastures – Perennials 500ha (Rhodes Grass with serradella base (Cadiz and Santorini)  Program to introduce 200ha of Santorini per year on the sandplain soils

Why I started Grazing Crops  Before 2010 – Opportunistic grazing of poor barley crops  2010 – Not enough serradella seed to sow planned area of old sub-clover stands  To overcome weed problems associated with those stands, why not crop these areas and graze to achieve weed control and provide needed sheep feed  “ More crop area – same sheep No’s ”

What I did in 2010  Sourced Wylah grazing wheat  Sowed 2 paddocks 8 th April following 20mm of rain  100kg/ha seeding rate into canola stubble (paddocks continuously cropped for 7 years – grass weeds should have been under control!)  Sown with 90kg/ha MAPSCZ / Urea Blend  Trifluralin applied pre-sowing - 1.6L/ha  2 summer weed control applications for fleabane, melons and flatweed

Paddock 1 – Cascades -1 st Grazing  After sowing – NO RAIN  Crops emerged and grew OK but then ran into moisture stress at 3-4 leaf (When grazing would normally be considered)  Deferred grazing as concerned about excessive crop damage  THEN – 100mm of rain in mid May  Grain & Graze trial paddock - Sheep introduced a week later ewes plus 850 lambs on 90 Ha  23 effective grazing days  50L UAN applied 3 days after grazing finished

2 nd Grazing  6 th July ( 3 weeks after 1 st grazing finished) introduced 1500 ewes plus 1350 lambs (82ha – 8 ha fenced off for Grain & Graze trial)  Initial moisture stress before 1 st grazing meant rapid regrowth and accelerated change from vegetative to reproductive – early head development evident in some plants  Held grazing period to 6 days only – concerned for crop yield  50L/ha UAN applied immediately

Post Grazing  More rain – another 100mm in June / July  Therefore water-logging became an issue and ryegrass went ballistic – no option to control  Nitrogen losses from leaching / water logging  Let crop run until harvest

Post Grazing Crop showing yellowing from water logging

Poor Ryegrass control in Wylah Wheat GrazedUngrazed

Paddock 2 - Coomalbidgup  Grazed similar to Cascades  2 nd grazing – not enough sheep to crash graze it fast enough  Moved and extra 800 hoggets onto paddock to try to get on top of it  Crop was too advanced – in head in JULY!

Plan B – Graze more cropping paddocks  Sheep removed from Paddock 1 (after Grazing crops field day) – moved onto 270 ha of barley / wheat  Mob stayed on this paddock for 3 weeks - removed in early August  On 2 other farms, similar size mobs moved onto 200ha baudin barley paddocks – June sown  Ryegrass control better – a proper herbicide regime worked  Yield penalty minimal

BEETLES 2010 Grazed Crops

INSERT YIELD MAP - FIELDS

What I learnt – plans for 2011  Any crop can be grazed – doesn’t need to be termed a “Grazing cereal”  Monitoring growth stage essential for negligible effect on crop yield  Spread out sowing dates for planned grazing crop paddocks  800ha of cereals planned for grazing this year  Sheep scour – mineral licks and roughage will be trialed this year  Pea area becoming vetch area – will be grazed