I've had a little success

[wbvs58]

I bought around 600 acres of mostly scrub country next door and due to our strict regulations on clearing have to leave most of it as it is. However there was 25 acres of it along the back border already cleared though a bit rough and with regrowth that was fenced and used by the neighbours over the back. This is also a state boundary. I had it it surveyed and fenced it and reclaimed this land. Last year I cleaned it up and planted the perennial sub tropical grass Premier Digit in early October, we had some reasonable rain soon after to germinate it but then virtually no rain in November with heat wave conditions however it hung on and after 200 mm rain in December it has come on better than I could have hoped for. I put out around 2.5 tonne of fertiliser sweepings early December at 300kg/ha. A bit unscientific I know but has good levels P, S, K, N and cheap. I planted it with my old 14 tine seeder with spacings at 150 mm through the small seed box. The tubes drop the seed on top of the ground over where the tines ran and I drag behind it a rubber tire roller which firms down the seed and usually folds a bit of soil over the very small seed. Digit grass is a summer growing perennial that persists well on our sandy acid soils. Steers will put on a kilo a day over summer on it. I will be mostly stockpiling it and the cows will go up the back on it in autumn after I wean their calves. I'll broadcast the legumes Serradella and Subterranian clover after the cows have knocked it down a bit and then hopefully trample the seed in a bit. The legumes work well to fix a bit of nitrogen to keep the grass productive.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Looks extremely successful. When you put the cows on it, will you also let them graze the scrub areas around this stock piled grazing? Extra browse/weather protection?

 

[wbvs58]

I'm trying to educate you my friends so I have not converted my metric measurements to Imperial for you. You will have to put them into an online converter.

Ken

 

[Redgully]

Great to see you are getting some rain over there. Grass looks good. Serradella grows really well here but doesn't seem to persist well where as subterranean clover hangs around really well. I used dalkieth here. The cows are going to have a field day in that pasture.

 

[wbvs58]

Looks extremely successful. When you put the cows on it, will you also let them graze the scrub areas around this stock piled grazing? Extra browse/weather protection?

Jeanne, this is fenced seperately. You can probably make it out in the photos the old netting fence, it was made to keep dogs out from sheep and other wildlife like roos which is very helpfull. Even though it is pretty old and run down I will maintain it as the roos will eat a lot of pasture.
The cows get plenty of time in the timbered area. I will probably have them in there for a couple of weeks before heading up the back and then when finished up there I have another 12 acres of cleared land on another boundary that will have oats ready to graze by then. The scrub block is a great resource for me, no matter how bad things may get they will always find something to chew on in there even though the quality is poor. I can then supplement them on a custom grain mix without having to worry about and the expense of hay or straw. With my light sandy country things go belly up real fast when you have a dry spell, you need options so I am able to get them off my better country before they do damage and then I get rapid recovery when we get rain.

Ken

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Yes, I did observe the fencing. Nice to improve on options!!

 

[wbvs58]

Great to see you are getting some rain over there. Grass looks good. Serradella grows really well here but doesn't seem to persist well where as subterranean clover hangs around really well. I used dalkieth here. The cows are going to have a field day in that pasture.

I've had mixed results with Seradella, Red. Some paddocks seems to go better than others. Sometimes you don't see it for a while then as in autumn 2020 it seemed to be coming up in a lot of places. It first was introduced over your way I believe. Bob Freebairn, agronomist that writes for The Land is a big advocate of it with Premier Digit and has a lot growing on his own property central west NSW. He does say you have to keep the P and S levels up to it though. Yes Dalkeith is probably the sub clover I have used most of here.

Ken

 

[Silver]

Looks like you've done a bang up job that will pay dividends for a long time.