Building solid foundations

“We have had to adapt to the complexities of these mixed pasture systems but for the past three years, our cows have always had a feed of green grass each day,” Adam Forbes said.

Adam travelled from his home on the NSW mid-north coast to Warrnambool Victoria to address Dairy Australia’s inaugural Grounds for Growth conference, a soil and pasture biodiversity event supporting farmers with adopting multispecies pastures and other practices to improve soil health and function.

With his parents, Graham and Kathy, they milk 750 Holstein cows year-round on a pasture-based system for seven million litres of annual production, an average of 610kg/MS per cow.

The 272ha milking platform includes flat and steep land with 80 per cent of the farm being irrigated.

The farm experiences hot, humid conditions in summer and it could be wet or dry at any time of the year.

The family supplies the fresh milk market, so needs quality pasture to produce milk year-round, but hasn't been able to get perennial rye-grass to persist due to the warm overnight conditions throughout summer.

While traditional annual and Italian rye-grass dominated production in winter and spring, there were too many feed gaps or crops required in summer.

“A massive part of our business is maintaining strong summer milk production for the fresh milk market, and we’ve got to produce summer milk as efficiently as possible,” Adam said.

“We made the decision as a business to try to do that from direct-grazed forage rather than from bought-in forage or conserved feed.

“We needed to focus on high-quality, high utilisation grazed harvests, particularly on hot days.”

Matt Thompson of MNC Agronomy has been critical to the success of the system — his approach to finding a balance between economic and environmental sustainability has struck a chord with the family.

Incorporating cocksfoot and prairie grass in paddocks was a real leap forward, helping to maintain a ground cover in summer, and Adam gradually introduced more multispecies grasses, legumes and herbs to the system, as well as focusing on improving poorer quality paddocks through large applications of compost and cow manure.

There have been drastic changes for the better in the poor-quality paddocks, allowing for the persistence of mixed pasture systems in more challenging dry periods.

“The greater rooting depth of cocksfoot, lucernes and chicory compared to traditional systems allowed us to make sure our irrigation matches with our pasture species even in challenging conditions because they have ability to extract moisture and nutrients from further into the soil profile,” Adam said.

“We can irrigate more through the night or in off-peak periods using less expensive electricity and we’re handling dryer conditions better.”

Adam said that improving soil health reduced the farm’s reliance on inputs and made the pastures more resilient.

“We have multiple herds and to maintain consistency of the diet, generally the fresh herd will be on the mixed pasture systems whereas the stale herd will be on the more traditional system.”

However, they haven’t gone fully regenerative.

“We are still a fair way towards the conventional end,” he said.

“There are opportunities across the farm about how far you want to dip your toe in to the multispecies pasture space.

“The foundation of our success has been to use a checkerboard approach to minimise our seasonal risk. We’re not taking a shotgun approach — we have a targeted introduction of species.”

The farm had paddocks at different stages of development across a five-year window to minimise establishment periods.

“Prior to our changes, we were going for an annual rye-grass to a crop so half the farm was under establishment for part of the year. Now we’ve got different species in different rotations,” Adam said.

“We can get wet summers and dry springs, but this system will cope a lot better. It’s trying to not have all your eggs in one basket.”

Graham introduced the mixed pastures about 15 years ago on some heifer country and has gradually expanded to more land. They top up these pastures annually, generally with a fertiliser application.

Drones have been a game-changer, allowing them to plan better around rainfall events.

“The milking platform implementation process is quite well trodden now, with summer and winter crops used to manage weeds, a spring sowing of lucerne and chicory and then introducing some perennial grasses and clovers,” he told the Grounds for Growth conference.

“We go through the process of topping them up for two to three years and then finish off with rye-grass.”

“The lucerne and chicory phase in summer is absolutely critical — I think it’s the best direct grazed forage you can grow through summer.”

Adam said you could see the difference from the lucerne and chicory mix that was able to access deeper moisture and nutrients.

Winter wheat in the cropping phase has been another successful addition, with its grazing tolerance being better than oats.

Because the farm is summer rainfall dominant, there are some weed challenges, particularly crabgrass, but Adam said maintaining a ground cover is critical, not only to maintain milk supply but to avoid weed infestations.

Since the introduction of multispecies, soil tests have shown a great uplift in soil organic carbon and a lift in nitrogen and Adam said there were higher quality of pastures throughout the year.

“We will maintain a flexible approach and monitor pasture management and yield,” he told the Grounds for Growth conference.

Meanwhile, Adam can appreciate the benefits of the changes, including more high quality, palatable feed for summer, more efficient use of nutrients and water, improved soil health and biodiversity and less reliance on synthetic fertilisers.

And he hopes the messages can be spread far and wide.

“As a dairy community, we need to look at how we sell this space to consumers and show we are sustainable and holistic in the way we produce milk.”