Investment

This investment will bring together the research findings from several GRDC projects that have focused on ensuring the dual objectives of grain production and early grazing by livestock can be accomplished without impacting on grain yield. This is primarily focused on early sowings of winter or long season spring types of wheat and canola. The benefits from this investment are most likely captured in medium and high rainfall mixed farming systems.

In medium and high rainfall grain growing regions, early sowing opportunities facilitate livestock grazing of crops in the early vegetative stages. If undertaken correctly this has no negative impact on grain yield and allows mixed production systems to dedicate larger areas of their farming operation to crop production. There are several important on-farm decisions that must be made to ensure the success of grazing crops have unimpeded grain production.

The key considerations include

1. variety choice specific to early sowing,
2. plant establishment and anchoring prior to grazing,
3. critical levels of residual photosynthetic material that facilitate plant recovery post grazing,
4. allowances for additional nitrogen removal and
5. plant growth stage development with reference to timing of livestock removal. Each of these considerations is different for wheat compared to canola.

This project is designed to bring together all the previously generated knowledge under the above criteria for both wheat and canola in a grower friendly format to improve decision making around the use of grazing crops on-farm.