Background information
To make the best use of this procedure, it is important that you have a good ‘picture’ of the amount, condition and location of the natural assets, weeds and pests that that you need to manage in your grazing enterprise. Remember that these resources include:
- Soil: healthy productive soils, as well as gullies, eroded areas and paddocks with special needs (eg, low pH or erodible)
- Water: the amount, pattern and ability to capture your annual rainfall. Stock water supplies are included here
- Vegetation: weeds, native and sown pastures (and their condition), shelter belts, and remnant woody vegetation
- Riparian land, ie, any land that adjoins a permanent or temporary body of water, be it a river, stream, wetland or farm dam
- Native and feral animals: the species present and their havens.
Introduction
The farm water cycle
Water management is big business on farms. A 1,000ha farm receiving 500mm of rainfall has 5,000 megalitres of water to manage each year. The elements of the water cycle are outlined in figure 5.1.
Productive pastures, profitable grazing systems and improved sustainability are all about efficient management of the
water cycle. Poor management of the water cycle directly impacts on many of our resource management issues, including soil erosion, high nutrient loads in rivers, soil acidity and dryland salinity.
Efficient water use requires decisions about:
- Pastures species: deep rooted perennial species stay green longer — using more water and producing more feed over extended periods for livestock
- Pasture management: impacts on pasture growth, persistence and productivity
- Groundcover preservation: encourages rainfall to enter the soil for use by pasture. Grazing management directly influences groundcover.
Water use efficiency (WUE) indicates how successfully you convert rainfall to product (plant growth). WUE is an important indicator of sustainability. It determines how much water is used and how much is surplus water. For production the question is how much
rainfall is captured by pasture growth, or lost to evaporation, run-off, lateral flow and deep drainage.
Facts about remnant and riparian vegetation
- Healthy remnant bushland has mature trees, saplings, a well developed and diverse understorey, fallen trees, branches, bark and leaves, and few exotic plants.
- Bigger is better: size, connection to other patches and the width of corridors all make habitat more valuable. Smaller patches do provide habitat, particularly for plants and invertebrates, while scattered paddock trees play an important role as habitat, food, shelter and ‘stepping stones’ for many birds and bats.
- Action taken to conserve native vegetation will increase habitat for native birds and animals, and also for some pests like rabbits and foxes (see procedure 5.3).
- Riparian areas are hot spots for biodiversity, even when they only have water for some parts of some years.
Facts about native pasture
- Native pastures provide reliable (because of their diversity) and low input production while helping to maintain healthy soils and ecosystems. Much of Australia’s fine wool comes from native pastures because they provide a persistent feed supply.
- Native grasses are more persistent when allowed to recover after grazing, so that rotational grazing/resting for at least part of the year is an advantage.
- Native pastures respond positively to low rates of fertiliser, but higher rates destabilise the pasture, with annuals and weeds crowding out native perennials, though this can be mitigated by grazing management to some degree.
Facts about birds on farms
- A diverse range of bird species inhabiting the ground, the understorey layers and mature trees indicates the remnant vegetation is healthy.
- Variety in farm birds requires a variety in habitat, including pasture, scattered trees, windbreaks, dense timber, vegetated riparian zones and wetlands.
- Old trees with hollows are vital as nest sites for many birds, bats and small mammals. Trees less than 70cm in diameter rarely contain nesting hollows, but can provide smaller crevices and loose bark for species such as bats.
- Birds can consume many pest insects – an ibis can eat 250 grasshoppers/day and a magpie can eat 40 scarab beetle larvae/day.
Facts about weeds and pests
- Pests ands weeds threaten both pasture productivity and natural resources.
- Weeds cost the grazing industries around $1.8 billion each year in lost revenue.
- The threat posed to biodiversity by weeds is ranked second only after land clearing.
- Redlegged earth mite (RLEM) costs the sheep industry an estimated $200 million annually.
Key decisions, critical actions and benchmarks
Based on your vision for your grazing enterprise, identify for each of the following sections, the changes you and your family would like to see in that resource. Discuss and record what changes could be made to protect areas at risk, and when you will address these risks.
Farm sustainability
Use a self-assessment tool (SAT) to audit your farm’s financial, social and environmental sustainability. Tool 5.14 lists a number of SATs which are general enough for any sheep producer to use.
Identify and assess soil erosion risks
Use tool 6.1 in Healthy Soils to assess and record the land classes across your farm. From your knowledge of the farm and the land classes, identify the key areas at risk of soil erosion and record them on your aerial photo.
Three forms of soil erosion are reasonably common on sheep properties:
- Sheetwash (sometimes called rill or hillslope) erosion is the movement of soil downslope by running water. The key factors are rainfall intensity, groundcover, slope length, gradient and soil erodibility
- Wind erosion is most common in drier areas. Typically, areas subject to wind erosion are exposed and have easily transported, unconsolidated, loose and fine sand-size aggregates
- Gully erosion is most common in higher rainfall zones. Gullies produce poor quality run-off and, with streambank erosion, are the main sediment sources across southern Australia.
Maintaining and/or increasing groundcover can prevent and/or reduce the impact of these erosion processes. Set goals for groundcover in each land class on your farm using the benchmarks in procedure 6.2 in Healthy Soils. Use tools 6.2 and 6.3 in Healthy Soils to measure groundcover at the sites with highest erosion risk on your property.
Assess the salinity risk
The primary cause of dryland salinity in Australia has been the replacement of deep rooted/perennial native vegetation with shallow rooted/annual crops and pastures that use less water. The excess water (often called recharge) not used by plants drains below the root zone causing the water table to rise. It may bring saline groundwater up towards, and eventually into, the root zone, somewhere ‘downslope’ (often called discharge).
Sufficient salt in the root zone can restrict or stop plant growth. Contact your regional natural resource management agency (see signposts) to determine the risk of salinity in your area. Use the following tools to assess that risk to your grazing enterprise:
- The pasture assessment techniques in tool 7.6 in Grow More Pasture to measure the perenniality of your pastures. Compare your result with the benchmarks in tool 7.6
- If areas are salty, tool 5.1 will help rate salinity across your paddocks. SALTdeck cards (see tool 5.14) will help you identify the indicator species listed in tool 5.1.
Water draining through the soil leaches nitrogen and contributes to soil acidity. Perennial pastures can assist in preventing soils becoming more acid.
Assess the condition of native vegetation
It is important to identify what native species are present on your property to inform future management actions, and to select the best species for any revegetation projects. However it can be difficult to identify individual tree, shrub and grassland species without some training.
Species identification tools are not included in this package but tool 5.14 contain many useful references and links. Most regional NRM authorities (see signposts) have tools, access to local experts and information to help sheep producers identify native species.
Several assessment and monitoring tools are listed in tool 5.14. Use tools 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5 to quickly and simply assess the condition of native bush, riparian zones and native pastures on your farm and for on-going monitoring. They also contain some management recommendations.
Even if you do not plan to use the tools in a formal monitoring strategy, reading through the checklists in tools 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5 will give you a good indication of the important issues for your native bushland, riparian areas and native pastures.
Discuss and record what you would like to see in your areas of native bush, riparian vegetation and native pastures, what changes could be made to protect areas at risk (eg, make them larger, denser, more diverse, etc), and when you will address these risks.
Survey birds as ‘focal’ species
Birds have received more attention than any other animal group when designing landscapes for environmental outcomes.
Birds are a popular choice for several reasons:
- Birds are mobile - they move across the landscape at the planning scale of hectares (paddocks) and kilometres (properties)
- Birds are relatively easy to survey, being abundant and visible during the day
- Birds are placed well towards the top of food chains. Many woodland birds feed on a wide variety of insects, which in turn require a mixture of plant species and types
- Birds can be powerful motivators for undertaking management on farms, with many sheep producers being keen birdwatchers.
Native birds are perhaps the most useful ‘indicator’ group. A farm with a rich diversity of birds will also have a relatively high diversity of trees, shrubs, mammals, reptiles, frogs and invertebrates. If the small birds are missing, there is something wrong with the habitat. Too many larger birds or noisy miners indicate a lack of balance.
Use tool 5.6 to assess bird numbers and diversity on your property. The tool accounts for the fact that different parts of the farm will have different bird groups, highlighting the fact that a variety of habitats is required across the farm. Alternatively, keep a small notebook in the ute and record birds (and/or native animals) as you come across them in your ordinary day’s work. All family members can make entries in the notebook and later add them to a master list.
Tool 5.14 lists many useful references and links to help you identify birds. Identify what changes you can make to the vegetation on your farm to improve bird populations, and when you will make them.
Assess the prevalence of weeds
Successful weed management is much more than ad hoc weed control. It is important to work out why weeds are a problem on your property; set realistic goals for both pasture and weed management; undertake the appropriate weed management practices on time,
every time; check whether your weed management has been successful and adapt your plan as needed.
This approach of Deliberation, Diversity and Diligence is called the ‘3Ds of Weed Management’. Each step has key decisions and critical actions. Use the Deliberation table in tool 5.7 to compare a stocktake of your current weed problems (species and density in
key paddocks) and agree on priorities for action based on what you want the weed level to be. Record what changes could be made to weed populations on your farm by when.
Assess invertebrate pests
Correctly identify the pest. Your local agronomist can help you identify the species present. Other sources of information include CSIRO Entomology (see tool 5.14) and State Departments of Primary Industries/Agriculture. Identify what you would like the pest level to be, and what changes could be made to reduce and keep pest populations small. It is important to choose the appropriate tools to manage each pest, using an integrated approach (integrated pest management or IPM – see procedure 5.3) and to monitor the effectiveness of your approach.
Different pests require different management strategies. For example, redlegged earthmite (RLEM) and blue oat mite (BOM) look very similar but have different lifecycles. This difference means that the timing of pesticide spraying using TIMERITE® works for RLEM, but not for BOM.
Assess vertebrate pests
A variety of vertebrate pests affect sheep farms across Australia, including:
- Introduced pests such as goats, deer, rabbits, pigs, foxes, and wild dogs
- Native browsers such as kangaroos, wallabies and wombats.
Many of the habitats that support native animals and birds on farm also favour the vertebrate pests. Individual sheep producers and their families have to find the balance that suits their situation. Rabbits damage vegetation by ringbarking trees and shrubs; prevent
regeneration by eating seeds and seedlings; and degrade the land through burrowing and reducing groundcover.
Selective grazing by rabbits changes the composition of the vegetation. Where rabbits have caused the slow decline of, say, bulokes on roadsides in western Victoria, there are fewer food trees for species such as the red-tailed black cockatoo that have declined as a result, though clearly not from direct ‘competition’ from the rabbits.
The impact of rabbits often increases during and immediately after drought and/or fire, when food is scarce and they eat whatever remains or re-grows. 2-3 rabbits/ha is sufficient to severely depress the regeneration of native shrubs and trees. Spotlight transect counts (the number of rabbits seen along a set route or transect) are an accurate way to monitor rabbit populations, though the number of rabbits seen in the car headlights when driving home provides a good enough indicator of rising or falling rabbit numbers.
Fox control can increase lamb marking percentages by as much as 25% when programs are implemented. In addition, foxes are major predators of rabbits (good) and small native mammals and reptiles (not good). While monitoring rabbit numbers is useful on farm, monitoring fox numbers is not. This is because of the highly variable (and imprecise) relationship between predator numbers and their impacts on prey species, and because with sheep, it is only at lambing that predation is likely.
Identify the prevalence of vertebrate pests and their location on your farm, what you would like to the pest level to be and what changes could be made to reduce and keep numbers down.
Audit stock water supplies
Like a feed budget (see tool 8.4 in Turn Pasture into Product), tool 5.2 will allow you to calculate how much water you have, how much your stock need, and/or how long a dam or water supply will last. Use tool 5.2 to complete a stock water audit of the quantity, quality and reliability of your stock water supplies.
Firm up and resource your plans
Mark all the relevant patches and paddocks on your aerial photo or farm map with a permanent pen, and mark your plans with a non-permanent marker (see procedure 5.1).
Once you and your family have drafted your vision onto an aerial photo, the next step is to make sure your plan is attainable and practical. This is the switch from strategic to operational planning. A network of regional natural resource management (NRM) authorities is responsible for investing in land management practices that achieve community and environmental benefits.
These authorities are called catchment management authorities (CMAs) in NSW and Victoria, Regional NRM councils in WA, NRM Boards in SA, NRM Regional Committees in Tasmania and Regional NRM Bodies in Queensland.
Contact your regional authority and get them to help assess your options and outline what support they might be able to provide.
Depending on your particular regional NRM authority, this support might include:
- Assistance with the planning
- Advice on incentive funding
- Help to complete an application for incentive funds
- Taking you to visit farms that are a few years down the track (ie, just properly started) and 10 years down the track (to see the sort of progress that you might expect in 10 years)
- Cash assistance - a real possibility in many regions.
Note: Tools available from source website.
