Jan Clawson, ASHEEP & BEEF
So much can be learnt from visiting other areas and industries.
The Eastern States Tour started when we flew into Melbourne on Friday 2nd August 2024. Our group of WA farmers included Simon & Robyn Fowler, Steve & Bec Bingham, Alan & Bec Hoggart, Nick Ruddenklau, Wes & Fran Graham, Mark & Liv Walter and myself, Jan Clawson.
DAY 1: Melbourne. MCG, football.
We checked into our accommodation, then ticked off the first of many bucket list items by travelling to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on a Melbourne Tram. We had a guided tour of the MCG where we leant just what is involved when maintaining perfect grass for the football season then transporting the cricket pitches in to convert the grounds to cricket for the season.
We saw all the facilities that are available to the players, coaches & media. Surprisingly, the rooms are not as big as they look on the television. We then went up and saw the corporate boxes and the rooms available to members and dignitaries. The views of the grounds were quite amazing, no wonder they are so popular.
We also saw the history of the grounds in honor boards, photos, and memorabilia. The tour finished with a look through the Australian Sports Museum which covered the Olympic games, racing, football & cricket to name a few.
Photos: The tour group on the hallowed MCG grounds. The Shane Warne Stand. Memorabilia, MCG Honor Board, Clock in the long room. Our tour guild with an amazing tapestry of all the events held at the MCG.
On our way back to the accommodation we found a classic Melbourne bar for a quiet pregame drink. Next stop was Marvel Stadium for Melbourne verses Bulldogs football game.
Photos: Football group photo. Flinders Street Station. Hell’s Kitchen, a classic Melbourne bar.
DAY 2: Streatham.
Southern Farming Systems trial, companion planting peas in canola.
Jigsaw Farms, carbon neutrality in a high production system, onfinement troughs and shelters.
Saturday morning was the first of our early starts, travelling across Melbourne, picking up our hire bus and heading to our first farm visit at Streatham, where we met Audrey Gripper Southern Farming Systems (SFS) Senior Research & Extension Officer.
Audrey told us SFS is a grower group that was established by a group of farmers in 1995. Their first project was research into cropping with raised beds to reduce waterlogging. The group now has 5 branches across southern Victoria and northern Tasmania, 20 staff and 600 members.
The site we visited was their Farm Systems South site which is a crop sequence and rotation trial. The trial is in its second year of a 4-year trial. Using a canola wheat rotation as the control they are trialing 13 different systems. From this trial they will develop modelling and economics on the most profitable and sustainable rotations. The rotations included adding legumes into the system, so we saw companion plantings of canola planted with peas (Peaola) and wheat planted with vetch (Wetch) as well as biennial ryegrass.
To set the scene for this area of Victoria; they are traditionally a 500-550mm high rainfall area, they average over 6.5t/h winter wheat yields and 3.5t/h for canola. Their growing season is from April to December. But like us, they were in the grip of a very dry start having only received some 90mm of there 200mm expected rainfall to date.
This trial site is on Ed Weatherly’s property. Ed is the 5th generation of his farming family with a goal of handing a profitable and sustainable business to the 6th generation, who we saw running around the paddock. Ed talked us through his farm system. He had not long returned to the farm so there had been a few changes. They moved away from a traditional Merino flock to Aussie Whites or Nudie’s which had been very successful. They are fortunate enough to have 4 abattoirs within an hour of their farm. Ed runs a canola, wheat, faba bean rotation. He uses chicken manure as a way of limiting chemicals use, they have several chicken farms in close proximity. They have a range of soil types from rocky lava flow areas to highly productive loam sands, which made us very envious. He uses phalaris, clover, chicory and ryegrass pastures along with bean stubble for sheep feed. Ed has a sustainability focus; he recognises the potential to achieve a premium from reduced carbon emissions so is working on improved pastures and genetics and was the first of many on the tour to talk about telling or owning our story as farmers but also as environmental stewards.
Ed’s pearl of wisdom: Having a trial on his farm saves him a lot of time and money, he likes trialing different stuff, this way he gets to see what’s happening without doing the work.
We then travelled to Jigsaw Farms, one of the first farms to achieve carbon neutrality in 2011. Owner Mark Wootton talked us through his system, we covered a lot of ground in a bit over two hours. It was great to have Mark jump on the bus giving us a farm tour.
Jigsaw Farms is a 3,500ha farm running 18,000 merino ewes, joining 12,000 ewes to Merino rams and 6,000 to terminal sires as well as 804 cows cross bred between Hereford and Angus plus opportunistic trading. There is virtually no cropping, Jigsaw Farms buy in all their grain and hay. Jigsaw Farms runs a high input, high production system. Since 1996 their production per hectare has doubled, great in good seasons not so good in the dry years like this year.
Jigsaw Farms have planted 692ha of trees and shrubs or 19% of the total farm area, of that 50% is native revegetation. Shelter belts are a standard 27metres wide or 7 tree rows, mostly planted for protection from the prevailing southerly and westerly winds. They have seen a production benefit; the trees are what got them to carbon neutral but for all the other benefits like lamb survival.
While the ground water can be salty Jigsaw Farms have built deep dams to reduce evaporation and captures run off water in manmade wetlands surrounded with native revegetation trees. This has also increased biodiversity; in 1996 they had 48 recorded bird species this has now increased to 174 species.
Jigsaw Farms has increased their production by improving pastures, vaccinating for OJD, improved sheep genetics with a focus on increased fat and muscle to create a more fertile and robust sheep. As a result of this they have increased their lambing percentage from 65% to 112%. They use confinement for both cattle and sheep to finish stock quicker as well as feeding to a market to achieve a premium.
Photo: Sheep feeder and shelter, note the tree plantings in the background.
Then there’s the tree plantations, which were originally planted to provide an alternative future income. Although 20 years on there are challenges with harvesting them as well as losing the co benefits and you get the feeling this is a little sanctuary for Mark. Today the trees are sequestering slightly less carbon now the growth rate has slowed, meaning Jigsaw Farms are now just under carbon neutral.
Image: Mark’s Sanctuary, Wes embracing biodiversity.
While there are benefits to being carbon neutral, like being able to tap into carbon friendly markets, there are more benefits in farming well and being able to tell a good story!
Mark’s pearls of wisdom: Control what you can control; genetics and production efficiencies are primary profit drivers. Know your emission intensity number, know why and know where you want your emission to be.
We joined a group of New Zealand farmers hosted by ZQ Merino at Jigsaw Farms, going on to have dinner with them at a small town called Dunkeld that night, where the conversations continued.
DAY 3:
Hamilton. Banemore Herefords, bluestone woolshed, carbon emissions economics.
Yambuk. Irrigated and dryland dairy with rye grass, share milking, data use, pasture management.
The first stop on day three was just south of Hamilton at Jo & Jonothan Jenkins farm “Banemore”. Originally Banemore Hereford Stud, this stud was part of the establishment of Breedplan, the genetic evaluation service that produces EBV’s for beef cattle.
We started the visit in a Bluestone woolshed that was built in 1852. The first thing we noticed was the windows or ventilation. And while that was one use, it was also a pretty wild time back then and there could have been a more protective roll for the windows, notably the angled bricks on the inside provided good visibility out.
Photos: Bluestone Woolshed, Tour Group with Jonathan.
Originally a 12-stand blade shearing shed with a dome roof, following a peat swamp fire in 1939 the roof was lost, it was replaced with the gable roof it has today. At some point the port holes have been filled in or covered. The shed has now been converted to a 4-stand raised board shed. It holds half a day’s shearing or a bit over 300 big ewes.
The Jenkins moved to composite sheep about 10 years ago, aiming for ewes under 60kg, easy care with black feet and wool under 30 microns. This move was because they found Merino were not good in their wet conditions. Lambs are sold into a local store market at no more than 40kg.
Their cattle have, for the last 30 years, been autumn calving but have recently moved to a spring calving when there is better feed availability, preferring to finish weaners in a feedlot to receive a more reliable return.
Like us, there has been a big push to harvest plantation gum trees, but because they also have koalas they’re having to leave areas of trees for the koalas, creating some extra challenges.
The other challenge is the removal of the trees has had an effect on lamb survival. The Jenkins are planting native revegetation shelter belts similar to Mark at Jigsaw Farms, for Carbon sequestration as well as shelter.
Before returning to the farm full time, Jonathan completed a master’s in business economics at Melbourne Uni, he has recently gone back to complete a PhD focuses on the economics of managing emissions in red meat production systems. The study focuses on beef enterprises but also incorporates feedlots, cropping and sheep. Jonathan also touched on the value of carbon, the cost of paying to offset emissions, the roller coaster of the current carbon markets and farmers not getting paid for what they’re doing, with no way of passing on some of those costs.
Finally, the lost narrative on red meat and the challenge of getting the good farming stories into the urban views, getting people to understand where their food comes from and to consider food miles in the consumers decisions.
We look forward to following Jonathan in his PhD journey and to learning the results of his work.
Jonathan’s pearl of wisdom: Tree plantings will help with the productivity of your property, more than for carbon sequestration.
We then travelled further south to a dryland and irrigated dairy at Yambuk where we met Phil White.
Originally from New Zealand, Phil started as an agronomist running his own consultancy business before leasing 100 cows as part of a dryland dairy in 2016, he now “share milks” 1000 cows with the aim of continuing to grow his numbers until 2025.
For a bit of background on Phil’s 50% share milking arrangement; basically Phil is responsible for everything that moves, the landowner is responsible for everything else, this costs him 50% of the milk cheque. The share milking arrangement may seem expensive until you consider the current land values; the 300ha Phil uses would cost upwards of $10M to buy today.
Also, dairy farmers are not paid per litre of milk produced rather by per kilogram of milk solids so the amount of fat and protein in the milk. The aim is to produce as much good quality milk as possible.
Phil uses a rotational cell grazing system. He does a weekly pasture walk to “score the paddocks” this is an assessment of the pasture growth and quality; from that he plans the cell size and which cell the cows currently being milked will graze for a 3-week rotation. For his own piece of mind, he needs to have a clear grazing plan for at least a week.
On the day we visited he was milking 440 cows. These cows all went into one cell for one day. He also mentioned that because we visited the cows in one part of the paddock then drove around the other side prompting them to walk towards us again his milk production for the day would be down. Basically, he needs them to be eating and putting all their energy into producing milk not walking around a grazing cell.
Then there is the data collection and production monitoring. Phil uses tracking collars which link to a computer program to track individual milk production and cow health, he can also set it up to auto draft cows out at a milking for any reason be it rebreeding, pre-calving or end of the lactation cycle.
As with the other sites, it was unseasonably dry, so we got onto fodder. Phil works on having 1.5-2 tonne of fodder per cow on hand. He uses fertilizer to get as much biomass as possible before making silage in October each year. He sees fertilizer as an easy way of getting more feed. His soil type is not unsimilar to our coastal sands being only 5kms from the beach, so it was good to see the potential of a high input rotational grazing system.
Phil’s pearl of wisdom: Use the good years to prepare for the next bad years. When it’s dry is too late to be wondering what you’re going to do; have a plan!
We continued south to Port Fairy for a quick visit, what a beautiful little town also known as South Hamilton to the locals as that’s the summer holiday destination for the farmers.
Photos: The boat ramp and the beach at Port Fairy, very pretty.
On the way back to Hamilton we called into the Hamilton & Region Livestock Exchange (Saleyard) which was established in 1955. It has 126 cattle selling pens and 90 holding pens as well as a bull selling ring, 466 sheep selling pens and 114 holding pens as well as irrigated agistment paddocks for sheep.
DAY 4: Hamilton. Sheepvention, Richard Eckard on carbon emissions, sheep in-paddock weigh system.
The second day of Sheepvention was Day four for us “Sheepvention Day!”
The first stop for the day was the Peter Schroder Memorial Breakfast Lecture with Professor Richard Eckard from Melbourne University, speaking on carbon neutral livestock production – who’s asking and is it possible, balancing sustainable demands on the global stage.
Richard developed the first carbon calculator some 18 years ago, the current PICCC Tool, which we use in our Meat and Livestock Australia Producer Demonstration site funded Carbon Neutral 2030 - Getting started on farm project.
Richard gave us some confidence that we are on the right track to achieving net zero by 2050 and that the whole industry can achieve a reduction simply by focusing on efficiency targets. As for insetting like soil carbon and tree planting, farmers need to keep all carbon credits for themselves or their family.
He went on to discuss the suggestion of the red meat industry using a “Supply Shed” concept for the carbon market. The official definition of a “Supply Shed” is a group of suppliers in a specifically defined market providing similar goods and services that can be demonstrated to be within the company's supply chain. It’s like a co-op but it does require the whole supply chain to be involved so there is still a bit of work to do. The sugar industry uses the system, he said it puts the farmers back in control, so it might be something we need to learn more about.
So, what about methane? Emission intensity (the total emission divided by the amount of product sold) is directly related to production efficiencies, so getting animals to weight and off the planet as soon as possible. There are supplements, inhibitors and even vaccines but there are also legumes like Serradella and Biserrula and perennials like Chicory which are equally beneficial and probably easier to implement on farm, so we are already on the right track.
Richard said, “focus on farm efficiencies and the carbon emission will follow”. There is also a need for farmers to talk about what we are already doing as environmental stewards. We need to be on the front foot, be in front of the government by being proactive and embark on training new ministers so they hear our story first.
Finally, biodiversity will be the next big thing, but what is it? You can google the Australian Sustainability Framework. It looks massive and a little bit ridiculous, but we are already doing most of it, we just don’t realise, and we certainly don’t promote what we are doing. Again, we need to tell our own story because it’s a good one!!
Alan & Bec’s take home message: Know and understand your carbon emissions but don’t panic about emissions.
We went our separate ways for the rest of the day, having a good look around at the new technology and activities, it was amazing to have an event solely focused on sheep production.
Photos: Sheepvention, sheep come in all shapes and sizes, along with some lost fathers.
Photo: Fran won a Z Tag raffle, so now Wes has to buy an applicator. In paddock scales for sheep. Painting.
DAY 5: South Australia. Packaging shed with robotics, flood irrigation farming system, lucerne, grazing flood irrigated pastures, Willalooka Tavern, TFI Tintinara Feedlot, Mentara Park Farm.
We hit the road again on Day 5 travelling to Naracoorte on our way to Tailem Bend.
The first stop was Naracoorte Seeds where we met Jamie Tidy and Dylan Brodie. Naracoorte Seeds was founded by John Clarkson in 1962 as a pasture seed seller and cleaner to local producers he also developed the now trademarked FreshCoat legume inoculation system.
In 1980 Jamie’s family purchased the business, this is also about when irrigation was introduced which increased the amount of seed produced in the area. Today, Naracoorte Seeds is one of the largest privately owned seed companies in the Australian seed industry. Importing seed varieties from countries including New Zealand and America as well as exporting and trading seed around the world.
Jamie spoken on the various seed mixes they produce, of interest was a phalaris / chicory mix for clay soils. We looked through the packing shed which includes a robotics plant that closes 20kg bags and packs them onto pallets. They no longer clean seed, preferring to source cleaned seed for coating and distribution.
They also have their own pasture seed research farm where they test new varieties for suitability for both sheep and cattle including palatability and recovery from grazing. One of the challenge’s is there is no money for pasture research or seed breeding.
We travelled out to the farm which should have been flooded but, like Victoria, they had received about half their expected rainfall. We did get to see how well Lucerne was coping with the dry conditions and quick crash course on a flood irrigation system.
A big thanks to Bob Reed for organising this stop and recommending our lunch stop at the Willalooka Tavern.
We travelled on to Tintinara to Thomas Food International (TFI) Southern Cross Feedlot where we met Ben Davies, TFI National Key Account Manager and General Manager James Sage who had been in the job sixteen months when we visited.
What an impressive facility, which is still in development, seeing 30,000 head of Angus cattle across 216 pens, that’s 160 head per pen, all under shade cloth. The feedlot is about 60kms from the coast, so like us, gets a sea breeze most afternoons in summer.
We learnt how new entry cattle are processed then spend the first 90 to 100 days in an area close to a fully staffed hospital shed and pens before moving to the next section for 50-180 day then on to the final section near the out-loading facility. These cattle are fed for 150, 200 or 270 days exiting the feedlot at 350-500kg dressed. While it’s not always possible, the preference is to receive straight lines of cattle in160 head lots, one pen, they will stay together as a group right through the feeding process, even a mixed line will enter as a group and stay together, it’s all about minimising stress.
All cattle are moved with horses, they have 4-5 staff on horses that are pen riders, they walk through the pens daily checking all the cattle are well, moving anything out that’s not happy. They use straw for bedding in all the pens which are regularly cleaned and straw replaced, like us, the cattle appreciate clean sheets, although their feed intake will drop for a day or so.
Then there’s the feed, the feed mill has 2 staff, they aim to finish feeding by 3pm each day, they feed out between 90-100t per hour using trucks that carry 17.5 tonnes per load. The mix is made up of rolled barley, silage, oaten hay, lucerne hay, cotton seed, almond hulls, canola oil and minerals suspended in molasses. The cattle have a weight gain of around 1.85kg per day leaving as a score 4 plus animal.
Most cattle go to the Murray Bridge processing facility about 90 minutes away which we will see the next day.
Wes’s take home message: Interestingly they are all longer fed programs that are geared more for the export market than local trade. The biggest efficiencies would be coming from the large farms beside the feedlot that supply a lot of the inputs.
We finished the day at The Bend Motor Sport Park, Tailem Bend where we join a group of Coorong farmers and some of the Platinum Ag Coorong team for dinner.
Meningie farmer Tim Eckart spoke about his family farm and the challenges they had faced and were still facing with just 65mm rain for the growing season. The Eckart’s run a sheep/wool and cropping enterprise over 7800ha, Tim’s brother Matt managing some farm maintenance as well as all the fodder and transport side of the business.
For the sheep they have fed more than ever before which has stretched them more than they would have liked. With no rain on the horizon, they were starting to sell what they could. This all follows two wet years including 58mm of rain in January when they were trying to bale lucerne hay, constantly reducing the quality of each cut. They did sow barley into lucerne for some early feed which reduced the available feed on hand at the time with limited rainfall and many frosts. This feed was just starting to get away in early August.
On the positive side they had a good lambing, achieving 100% to 130% across all mobs and the crops were looking good considering the rainfall.
Tim also completed an 800ha soil amelioration program this year, while he wasn’t sure of the exact costs, he knew the cost of not doing it was far greater. The dry start this year really made that a standout.
Mark Walter spoke on the Esperance side, reassuring Tim that he wasn’t alone with Esperance being in a similar situation. Mark then provided a summary of the ASHEEP & BEEF groups role and activities. The conversations continued over dinner and few drinks.
DAY 6: Murray Bridge, TFI facility tour, paddle boat cruise, Illawarra dairy cows & irrigation, Benefield Merino.
The first stop for Day 6 was the new Thomas Foods International Murray Bridge meat processing facility where we met Ben Davies again. After signing in we walked the 750 meters length of the facility to the cattle receival area. The cattle yards use the same Temple Grandin design as the feedlot with curved races, this keeps stress to an absolute minimum.
The facility is currently processing 600 cattle per day with a goal to more than double that to 1300 head per day, once more staff have been trained and more chiller space has been completed. The plant has been designed to process sheep as well, but no timeframe has been set for this given the improvement they have recently completed on their other facilities.
The facility has been designed in such a way that we could view the whole process from behind glass. It was amazing to see how nothing is wasted. We followed the process down to the meat going into a box. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, so didn’t see the cold store section. We thanked Ben for the time he’d taken showing us both the feedlot and the processing facility, it was great to see improvement being made to the industry while still being a little envious of the number of facilities available to farmers on this side of the country.
We then had a change of pace, boarding the Captain Proud paddle boat for a three-hour lunch and cruise along the mighty Murray River before heading for our final stop for the day.
Photos: Captain Proud Paddleboat, Catching a quiet moment, A welcomed change of pace.
Glenbrook is just south of Murray Bridge. Trent Muller and his family own and operate an irrigated dairy, milking up to 400 Illawarra cows on 200ha with 40ha of pivot irrigation. They also have about 700ha they crop growing wheat, barley for hay, maze and a rye cereal mix for silage and 800ha for young stock and beef cattle.
They produce about 3 million litres of milk per year which goes into Beston’s Global Food Company where it’s made into mozzarella and pizza cheese as well as flavoured cheese, infant formula and pharmaceuticals, some is even exported to Japan & China.
Trent’s family have always milked Illawarra cows, they are an Australian breed with the same milk production as the black and white Holstein’s.
The system Trent uses is, after each milking the cows go onto a feed pad where they are fed a mix of cereal hay, Coopers brewers mix (spent grain from the Coopers factory) and corn/maze silage, then they spend the day on the irrigated lucerne. We walked up to the irrigated lucerne, it was a very impressive stand, the best we had seen for the tour, we also learnt center pivots irrigation systems don’t need a flat surface, it was a significant rise we walked up.
Trent stores the corn silage under a non-porous plastic which is not UV stable so covers that with a shade cloth for protection. This reduces the amount of silage lost to moisture. When he opens a silage store, he scrapes the contaminated layer off ensuring no mouldy crust goes in the feed fix. Because of the production monitoring they know within three days of a feed change if it’s a good move, this includes feeding bad silage. Maybe this is something to consider when feeding beef cattle too.
Matt Howell, Platinum Ag Coorong Agronomist, with Trent talked us through how they manage their river flats or swamp as they call it. It is an area of country that looks like a river flat but is actually a floating flood plain that is below river level, meaning if it floods it can’t be drained, it has to be siphoned. This area is also nearly pure acid about 1.5 meters below the surface, so while it can’t get too wet, it also can’t be allowed to go dry, it needs to be well managed to maintain productivity, which they obviously do very well. On our way back to town we saw areas of swamp that were unmanaged. They resemble wasteland with no grazeable grasses.
We finished the day with dinner at the Bridgeport Hotel with Chad Burbridge from Benefield Merino. Because the restaurant was quite busy Chad did a bit of speed dating moving around the table talking to our tour group. Again, the dry season was a major talking point and how it was being managed.
DAY 6: Adelaide. LambEx 2024.
Day 6 was another early start as we travelled to Adelaide to attend the first day of the LambEx Conference.
LambEx is a biannual event with an aim to promote the Australian sheep and lamb industry as a highly progressive and professional industry. Thanks to Covid this was the first conference since 2018.
There was a great line up of speakers and definitely an overload of information. I took a few notes on some of the speakers, so I’ll try to capture some of the key take home messages.
There is a move to telling the farming story which we need to continue. One example of this is Kangaroo Island Wool Co who have developed a paddock to wardrobe promotion. This was echoed by Claire Taylor a Scottish Ag commentator who talked us through the lessons learnt from Great Britain post Brexit when they proposed a ban on live animal export meaning the Scottish farmers couldn’t ferry sheep and cattle to their nearest abattoirs. This decision was eventually reconsidered, and an exemption implemented.
Claire said, apart from the noisy minority, the general public do trust our farmers, we just need to build the belief, how do we do that? TV shows like Muster Dogs are a good example and although we might find it a little cringe worthy, Clarkson Farm is another show putting ag on the map. She suggested creating a “Legacy Advocacy Orchestra”, bringing together the 270 Australian advocacy groups to sing from the same song sheet. We need to develop a public relations strategy and get ahead of the crises. This might include speaking to the media in good times, turning scrutiny into opportunity by controlling the narrative, build relationships with ministers early, and there it is again, tell our own story!
We actually have a great opportunity right now with the Keep the Sheep campaign, they have the ear of the media, the politicians and have built the support of the urbanites, we just need to keep it going.
The ZQ Merino speaker pointed out the sustainability focus is increasing meaning we need to create sustainability statements. When telling our story we should include our history, our goal for the future, create a bit of emotion and connect with people. Gen Z want evidence, so use our data to show the benefits.
We then heard from Steve Wiedemann, Integrity Ag, on the expectations and reality of carbon. His talk did create a little confusion for our group having heard from Richard Eckard just days before. The things that were consistent were the need for farmers to complete an emissions calculator to better understand their current emissions, consider soil improvements and tree options but think twice before selling carbon assets or credits, focus on improving productivity and better data capture for entry into the calculator, and take the long-term view. We have nearly 30 years to reduce our carbon emissions by 34%, that’s just over 10% per 10 years or 1.3% per year.
Following lunch, we heard a series of 10-minute speaking spots which covered things like the new visual sheep guide for udder score from UNE, NeXtgen Ag using AI to match dams to lambs, using genomics selection in both sheep & cattle to identify and select the lower methane emitting animals, it has the potential to reduce methane by 20-30% by 2050. The benefit of a Regulin injection and an ADE drench to improve conception rates in summer. An update from Adelaide Uni on the engineering behind the bio-harvesting for wool.
Finishing with three 5-minute pitches by the young Trailblazer finalists on
The effects of water quality on Methane
Heat tolerance ASBV traits for summer joining
Edible shelter to improve lamb survival. This one was a Murdoch Uni project and the one I think we need to know more about.
This session finished with an update on MSA for sheep, hogget and mutton specifically.
The conference finished with the results of the LambEx carcass competition, congratulations to ASHEEP & BEEF members Craig and Anna-Lisa Newman for their second place in the most valuable lamb team wool clip and Wayne Pech coming third in the overall highest feedlot performing lamb team and second in highest feedlot ADG lamb team with his Suffolks.
We finished the day as Rabobank VIP guests at the Grandslamb Gala Dinner thanks to Brad Crane at Rabobank Esperance.
Photos: Pre dinner drinks, we scrub up pretty well. Liv, Bec & Robyn enjoying dinner. Brad Crane with Steve Bingham.
DAY 8: Barossa Valley. Export hay & accommodation, Seppeltsfield Winery.
Our final day of the tour started with breakfast with Dr Matthew Denton, Adelaide University. Matt has been collaborating with ASHEEP & BEEF to develop a pasture legume research project across relevant growing regions in SA and WA. A good opportunity to catch up.
We then headed out to the Barossa Valley stopping at the Schuster Family Export Hay & Tourism enterprise along the way.
Harry Schuster met us at their export hay sheds. Harry and his two brothers are the 7th generation of the farming family, with 3 generation still involved in the operation, they have done a bit of diversifying which includes a function centre and accommodation as well as grain, hay, and pigs.
Being only 45 minutes from Adelaide the urban sprawl is starting to encroach with a small housing estate opening near them 18 months ago. The housing development land is selling for $160,000 per hectare which is seeing farming land be rezoned. Then there’s solar panels which offers a return 3 times that of cropping, which sparks a moral debate of renewable. Harry’s family have made a collective decision to remain farming.
There Freeling farm sits in a 475mm rainfall zone but they had only recorded 118mm for the year making it the driest on record.
The export hay business started with one shed some 20 years ago, today they have 4 or 5 sheds storing 8,000 big square bales per shed. They also have 2400t of grain storage plus seed.
As well as large square bails they also bale small squares but have a machine that pick them up and stacks them into bundles of 21 (7 bales x 3 bales high) making them a similar size as the big squares.
They harvest wheat and barley with stripper fronts to maintain straw length for the export hay. The hay yield is 8-10tonne per hectare. They use a round baler for the fence lines to reduce weed contamination of the big bales. They bale Oats, Wheat and Meadow hay as well as pea straw. They bale through to March. Long fibre is for horses and shorter for chickens.
They run a canola wheat legume rotation. Depending on weed load they use canola for weed control. They use chicken manure as the soul nutrient although it is getting expensive.
The pig side of the business turns off 50 pigs per week. The hay side of the enterprise is actually more profitable than the grain.
We then had a walk through their new machinery shed looking at the various machines and the fully enclosed and bunded drive through spray bay, which was very impressive. This was built with possible future regulations in mind as suburbia moves closer.
They also have a processing plant which breaks the large bales down to a small compact bale for domestic horse use as well as a pea straw bagged product for guinea pigs. There hay is trucked all over the country except WA.
Then there’s the function centre and accommodation. Harry told us they commissioned an architect for this project, the actual project has been completed in stages over time opening in 2020.
Photos: Accommodation Silo’s front & back, Stone Fertilizer Shed.
It all started following a fire in 2015 when they decided to rebuild the 1920’s stone stable into a function centre which now includes a commercial kitchen. Then an old stone fertilizer shed was made into accommodation. Adding three very flash silos as additional accommodation. The setting is quite spectacular and being surrounded with canola this year there are sure to be some special wedding photos. The facility has been used 30 weekend this year, Friday to Sunday. This is a great way for them to be telling the farming story to city guests.
Photos: Function Centre before and after.
Following a quick stop at Freeling, which happens to be the home of McLeod’s Daughters Gungellan Hotel, we travelled on to Seppeltsfield Winery for the final stop of the tour.
Following lunch, we were joined by the vine yardman who talked us through the management of the vineyard, which was originally planted in 1855, it is 40ha of bush vine Grenache plantings. This vineyard is hand-picked and pruned each year. We then went onto the wine making process through the gravity cellar and heard the history of the vineyard which became a sanctuary to Germans in Australia through the war years, finishing with a wine tasting.
Photos: Lunch on the beautiful ground of Seppeltsfield Wines. Learning about bush vines at the vineyard with the Vineyard-man. Wine tasting and the amazing Seppeltsfield Winery Buildings.
We were lucky enough to have great weather for the entire tour, although the locals would have preferred it to be raining.
A big thanks to all our site hosts, guests and attendees for making it a tour to be remembered, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed for ten days before.
As you have read, we saw some high production systems, the use of technology in production, the production possible with irrigation, diversification and of course good farm management.
My take home is “You don’t know what you don’t know!” So, consider joining a farm tour if you get the opportunity, it will be worth it.
ASHEEP & BEEF tries to organise a tour every second year, and while we don’t have anything planned now, we are always open to suggestions.
