A major benefit of perennial pastures is the supply of out-of-season green feed. The timing of the out-of-season feed shortage may vary between regions but the fact remains that many perennial pastures provide green feed at a time when annual pastures have senesced.
This can potentially alleviate the major limiting factor in livestock production – the cost of carrying stock through periods of feed scarcity.
Matching feed demand to feed supply:
Feed supply fluctuates throughout the year, as does the feed demand (energy, protein). At the farm level, collective feed demand depends on the time of lambing/calving, time and amount of turnoff and the livestock enterprise (e.g. sheep for meat production vs. sheep for wool production). This seasonal feed demand affects the value of perennial pastures.
Livestock enterprise:
The value and role of perennial pasture depends on the livestock enterprise. The value of perennials tends to be higher when meat production is the dominant livestock enterprise, however perennial pastures can also increase farm profit when the focus is wool production.
The nature of the livestock enterprise will determine when feed is required (e.g. turning-off stock at target liveweights) and the quality. For example, high quality feed such as lucerne is required to finish prime lambs while lower quality feed such as kikuyu suits fine wool production.
Area of perennial pasture:
Incorporating perennial pastures can often increase farm profit, however there is generally an optimum area beyond which profit decreases for every additional hectare of perennials sown.
The optimum area depends on several factors, such as the nature of the livestock enterprise, whether a mix of perennials is used, the mix of soil types on the farm and the relative profitability of grazing compared with other enterprises such as cropping.
Perennial pastures are usually more expensive to establish than annual pastures and may have lower growth rates during winter and spring. These costs are traded off against their benefit in supplying out-of-season feed. However, for a given size of livestock enterprise the value of extra out-of-season feed declines as more of this feed is added.
At some point the cost of an additional hectare of perennial pasture is greater than its benefit (these costs may be an actual cost such as establishment, or an opportunity cost such as not growing an alternative crop or pasture).
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