Pasture legumes to grow fortunes of mixed farms

MIXED farmers in low and medium rainfall zones across Australia’s southern and western regions will be the major beneficiaries of a significant new collaborative research initiative aimed at lifting average farm profit by 10 per cent and halving farmers’ economic risk through the adoption of novel pasture legumes.

The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is leading the $16 million project which is focused on delivering gains to mixed farming operations in Victoria, South Australia, southern New South Wales and Western Australia.

This project is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources as part of its Rural R&D for Profit program.

The five-year project is also supported by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) and Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) as well as 10 grower groups.

GRDC manager soils and nutrition Dr Stephen Loss said that the project will develop recently discovered pasture legumes and innovative management techniques that benefit livestock and crop production and promote their adoption by mixed farmers.

“This project is designed to boost the resilience of mixed farms – through the successful incorporation of pasture legume species currently not widely grown – in areas where average annual rainfall is less than 400 millimetres,” Dr Loss said.

Among the benefits expected to flow from the project are increased livestock production and crop yields, improved whole farm business performance, enterprise flexibility, reduced inputs and enhanced resilience to frost, drought and variable prices.

Plantings of legume pastures will add nitrogen to soils, improve soil structure, nutrient and water holding capacity and microbiological activity, and will provide valuable ground cover and protection from soil erosion.

Crop production benefits include greater nitrogen fixation, reduced fertiliser inputs to following crops, reduced reliance on herbicides to manage weed populations in the farming system due the grazing of weeds, and reduced disease and nematode prevalence in crops due to increased rotation with pastures.

Livestock production will benefit from better quality stock feed earlier in the season, improved animal reproduction and growth, and an ability to carry more livestock on each farm.

“The outcome we are striving towards is the adoption of 250,000 hectares of innovative legume pastures on mixed farms by 2022 and then increasing that to one million hectares by 2026 – boosting average farm profit by 10 per cent and halving the risk of financial losses compared to intensively cropped farms,” Dr Loss said.

“The lack of diversity in farming systems – especially those under continuous cropping – and the absence of well adapted and innovative legumes are regularly rated as of high importance by growers and their advisers, especially in dry areas.”