Paddocks to pastures using the Soilkee Renovator, multispecies pastures and rotational grazing

We follow this Australian Government Smart Farms Small Grant over two years with Tweed Landcare in northern NSW, Australia. The project trialed one method of converting tired, old, compacted cattle grazing paddocks to productive pastures to fill the winter feed gap and improve soils so they have better drought resilience. This trial was done on two farms in the Tweed Shire with a long history of grazing without additional inputs.
We talk to the farmers, Tweed Landcare and the pasture consultant before and after the project and share the lessons learnt to help other farmers wanting to try this themselves on their own farms. #farming #pastures #Soilkee #Agriprove #multispeciespastures #cropping #TweedLandcare #landcare #drought #biodiversity #soilcompaction #regenerativefarming #soilbiology #rotationalgrazing #smartfarm #climatechange #Nielsolsen #Mikegout

[@stephennussio4502]

Biggest influence is grazing management . This should be priority no.1.

[@stoamnyfarms]

Yep, you said it....

[@davidclode3601]

Always good to see Aussie farmers having a go! Thanks for the interesting video.

[@tweedlandcare636]

Thanks for the encouragement David!

[@joeyindahl2593]

It's really good to see there are still small farmers that care about the environment. These massive commercial monocrop farms are going to eventually lead to famine!

[@tweedlandcare636]

Thanks for your comment. They certainly do care about the whole farm, waterways and local biodiversity. Restoring the soils can be as rewarding as planting or regenerating a forest.

[@grantquinones]

The australian government didn't provide the money to do it the australian taxpayers provided the Money the government doesn't create anything they just take.

[@waseemabbasabbas1823]

The only solution to cover bare ground and diversity of grasses is holistic grazing management by small and large ruminants.use also electric fencing for maximum trempling and litter

[@youhen01]

At 30% per ACCU for doing bugger all soil carbon won’t be adopted by enterprises large enough to make a difference without a sliding scale in costs. Like Agriprove, Loam Bio is also a snake oil seller

[@marcruel9401]

Check out Greg Judy

[@cedriccbass-jp8ky]

nice. what the hell is carbon credits? does the WEF also control Oz?

[@tweedlandcare636]

In Australia farmers can earn carbon credits by sequestering carbon (from the atmosphere) into the soil through regenerative farming practices (e.g., time controlled (rotational grazing), rejuvenating pastures by seeding). Participants can earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) for every tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e) emissions stored or avoided by a project. ACCUs can be sold to generate income, either to the Australian Government through a carbon abatement contract, or to companies and other private buyers in the secondary market.
Don't know about the WEF controlling Oz, but the soil carbon credits program is one way to incentivise better land management, especially soil conservation and grazing practices.

[@cedriccbass-jp8ky]

@@tweedlandcare636 thanks for the info.

[@paddyt4043]

It's also called carbon capture , respected your small beef and lamb farmers folks... the dairy guys are ruining it for everyone else .

[@tritchie6272]

Seems to me like that one college guy or government man,I'm not sure which he is, don't want to fully come out of that depend on heavy equipment and Chemicals fetish.

[@tweedlandcare636]

Yes, we had some interesting discussions over the time, but ultimately he suggested cheaper and more available alternatives to using the Soilkee Renovator, which is a superb machine, but not easily available in the Tweed. He also had a point about using the urea as the growth rate (feed production) of the multispecies pastures was at least double that of the non fertiliser and organic poultry manure (although the poultry manure effects appeared to last longer). After decades of grazing, our trial areas were fairly devoid of nutrients and organic matter so they don't have much in the nutrient bank to give to the multispecies pastures without some kind of fertiliser input, otherwise the exercise is not very cost effective when the plants don't grow. This is also why it is recommended that the Soilkee is used a minimum of three times to kick start the soil biology and deeper nutrient cycling down in the soil. The soil biology is something that we didn't really appreciate fully until the end of the project

[@BenStill.]

@@tweedlandcare636 from what I understand, a typical soilkee application is a 50/50 mix of seed and fertiliser. Was that what you guys did? Obviously that will provide a pretty big kick along, but not necessarily long term. I've been trying just coating my seeds and using a direct drill.
Also interested if you had any more findings on the result during this wet period- I've found (NSW Hunter region) that I did more damage running a tractor on super wet soil, and that the seed I did get in was out competed by everything else, as the growth rates were so strong.

[@tweedlandcare636]

Hi Ben, no we didn't apply fertiliser just seeded with a 'Landcare' mix that was developed for our subtropical climate (can share that if you want). Both farmers wanted to use sustainable methods and tried to address soil deficiencies using lime/OzCal and non synthetic fertiliser i.e. soft rock phosphate. We underestimated how poor the soil condition was before we started and tried to address the issues of low pH, low nitrogen, low phosphorous, low potassium on the run. There had been no inputs to these soils for decades other than livestock manure and they were compacted and hydrophobic. We did small trials comparing the application of urea and organic poultry manure with a control of the Soilkee method alone. The urea trial went gangbusters in the beginning and the organic poultry manure kicked in a few weeks later with both showing marked improvement to the Soilkee treatment with no fertiliser. The poultry farm has excellent results where the chicken tractors had been, including the clovers (which are nitrogen hungry).
We had mixed results and better in the first year on the farm that was flooded. However, overall the Soilkee did an amazing job of breaking up the compaction, improving the condition of the soil through its mechanical action and presumably helping soil biology through better soil structure and fixing nutrition from the legumes. We would need to keep doing it over a few more years to get the real benefits. Yes there were furrows left that are annoying when driving/riding over. They have diminished a bit since last year and could possibly be fixed with more Soilkee applications. My understanding from multispecies pastures is that annuals are often planted, but we still have perennial species such as clovers and chicory kicking in from last year now with the cooler weather and the subtropical grasses are shutting down for winter. The hope is that with the rotational grazing method we can nurture these remaining species and keep more diversity in the paddocks, with their multitude of benefits to soil health.

[@tritchie6272]

@@tweedlandcare636 I've been seeing multiple video's on youtube with people improving Pasture by Rotating Cattle and sheep around. Probably the biggest most popular channel is Greg Judy. But he's not the only one. And it seems they each tweak it abit for what their needs/lifestyle is. Some people have more time to move their animals than others. And some people need to use more hay than others. In one video I seen the guy said that it seems each year he needs less and less hay cause his Pastures seem to get abit better each year.

[@rightaway8551]

That renovator destroyed his farm for years with those mounds. Can’t drive on it or walk. Should have just used no till drill.

[@waseemabbasabbas1823]

The only solution to cover bare ground and diversity of grasses is holistic grazing management by small and large ruminants.use also electric fencing for maximum trempling and litter