Greetings from "Uamby"

My wife Louisa and I bought our first property, “Vbrindavin”, 1000 acres near Goolma, New South Wales, in 1998. We did Holistic Resource Management training in 1999. We adopted rotational, time-controlled grazing techniques (against the advice of the local farmers). To do this we added 20 new paddocks and 4 dams.

We bought “Uamby” 15 kilometres away in 2001. We kept on the farmer who had been leasing the property (1780 acres) as manager. This was a mistake, as his attachment to traditional management methods and our lack of confidence in our own decisions led to a series of disasters. The worst drought in living memory forced us to sell “Vbrindavin” and follow advice which conflicted with our HRM training, to our disadvantage. We weaned early and took heavy losses. We opened all the gates and the pastures suffered badly from set stocking.

Taking over the management, we returned to the discipline of HRM and adjusted the drought plan to set stock only one area while allowing the other paddocks to recover. The current graze plan enables us to monitor the number of grazing days per paddock, which has enabled us to use certain paddocks twice as much as previous, while maintaining ground cover. We are committed to 100% ground cover 100% of the time.

We are experimenting with electric fencing and developed a mobile unit for dividing paddocks into four sectors. However it has been of limited value until recent times due to the dryness of the soil.

We are not interested in sustainability as much as regeneration of once healthy resources. The soils at “Uamby” have been severely depleted by years of over-cropping and neglect. Apart from the pioneer family (two generations of management) and the second family of owners (two generations of management), the other owners or leaseholders have been opportunistic and short term in their interest.

As part of our soil reconstruction program we have done the following:

• Pasture species selection: Shifted focus to concentrate on growing native perennials which our research revealed are as nutritionally sound as the best exotic pasture species, but also hardier and longer lasting. Our sheep prefer them and will walk over clover to eat perennials.

• Soil supplement trials: In the past 4 years we have conducted several trials with natural fertilisers to restart vigorous biological activity in the soil. Each year a different combination of trials was conducted, based on the learnings of the year before. We applied chicken manure and lime in various combinations on test paddocks. We applied Guano and DAP with a test strip in between. We applied nitrohumous (treated biosolids) on a 50 acre test bed. We applied worm juice. Results have been encouraging, although the long dry largely stilfed the full testing of these materials.

• Mulching: We found that where the previous owners had left round bales to rot, there was significant soil growth under the bales, several centimetres per application. So we invested in good straw to minimise weed problems and spread it on many bare patches to create a mulching effect. The results have been variable, depending on the stability of the surface covered during run off. However the principle works and mulching is now part of our management program. (Wellington Council is helping us restore a badly exposed section of the property after we shut down a gravel pit that had been operating for many years without compensation to the landholder. The restoration is using the mulching method to restart soil growth.)

• Paramagnetic rock dust: Arranged analysis with Boral pending a paramagnetic rock dust test. (Paramagnetic rock dust is spread and “antennae” of rock dust filled pipes erected to capture cosmic rays of energy from the Sun and transfer them to the soil which, so the theory goes, aligns the soil’s molecular structure and makes transfer of nutrients from soil to plant – via cations (see Albrecht) – more rapid.

Mineral supplements - Victorian animal nutritionist Pat Colby has formulated a sheep lick based on her analysis of minerals and trace elements which are commonly deficient. The lick – containing sulphur, copper, dolomite, and seaweed meal – is dispensed via a mobile grain feeder that follows the mob about as well as static dispensers.

Hydroponic feed production - As a drought feed supplement, we trialled hydroponic methods of growing oats, feeding out the biscuits once the oats had reached 15cm-20cm. Oats was preferred to other grain trialled (rye, wheat). This alternative was abandoned after a cost/benefit analysis.

Natural drench: We trialled Pat Colby’s lick as a drench, combining it with apple cider vinegar. The drought-affected sheep improved immediately and the improvement lasted 2 to 3 weeks. Conventional drenching is minimised by rapid movement of the mobs through the paddock rotations.

Monitoring worms: We conduct egg counts on manure so that no sheep is drenched without testing. Our ewes have been drenched only once in 2004 and 2005. Lambs and hoggets are more susceptible.

Pasture cropping: “Uamby” was among the first on farm consultations about pasture cropping. The experiment was a success, with the oats being sown dry and not striking until after the locusts had passed, giving us a crop to feed. And the native pasture has populated the test paddock, despite the baring of the earth by too aggressive application of the sowing equipment by our former manager. (We are not in favour of baring the soil for reasons of weed infestation and wind/water erosion.)

Weed management

On arriving at “Uamby” we found many of the paddocks unusable due to heavy Bathurst burr infestation. The Burr had not been managed due to a dispute between the owner and the lessee over who was to pay for it.

The first task was to get the burr below the belly level of the grazing sheep. To achieve this we developed “shellacking” – levelling the dried burr plants using a toboggan made from old gates and railway sleepers. Paddocks treated in this way had limited infestation during the next season as pasture species out-competed the weed.

The following seasons an extensive chipping and burning campaign kept the burr under control.

Bathurst burr infestation increased this season due to the soil baring influence of the long dry and the increasing soil fertility as a result of our measures. A ride on mower and a mulcher attached to the tractor were used to great effect to crop the weeds before they seeded. Shelacking was still required due to the resurgence this season. Burning the clumps of standing dead burr also proved effective, but used too much fuel.

In the first year, Purple Top infestation rendered another paddock unusable. While conventional HRM would prescribe simply putting your animals onto the patch, our sheep were not appropriate for clearing a paddock (because of size and vegetable matter in the wool). So we offered the paddock to a neighbour who had 20 horses and cattle on a 50 acre block and who was short of feed. Several weeks later the paddock was ready for sheep.

Fly traps

We have installed 6 fly traps to reduce the blow fly burden on “Uamby” and the incidence of blow fly strike. These are being monitored alongside the incidence of strike. Another example of testing natural methods of solving problems on the land.

Conclusion

We have a documented Holistic Goal for “Uamby” which we are working towards. Given this clear statement of intention, we simply follow our guiding light when making decisions. Our management practices develop as we trial ideas gained from other sources and solutions we invent to achieve our Goal.

The original management paradigm we started with was a variant of the traditional set stocking regime. The soil was to be protected by keeping animals off certain places, eg. river banks, by means of fencing them out and using corridors. However Holistic Resource Management, as taught by Alan Savory, revealed to us the tools of animal impact and rest as methods of returning life to the soil by assisting the carbon cycle.

To make planning easier we have invested in Endeavor farm monitoring software. The first application has been planning new fencing and water infrastructure. Ultimately this program will contain all operating data for the property, enabling us to better monitor progress and make decisions.

We have spent the last 5 years learning the sheep wool business and passed a significant milestone during our latest shearing. The shed was managed by our son Daniel who has been learning the farming business for less than 2 years. He has his stencil and classed this shearing. The results speak for themselves: In 2004, shearing 1854 sheep, we managed 35 bales and 5835 kg of partly tender wool. In 2005 we shore 2136 sheep for 50 bales and 9082kg of sound wool (2 bales tender). Relying on our own management expertise, we have lifted production per sheep from 3kg to 4.25kg per head.

In this period we have been continuously assessing alternative enterprises. We have principles by which other enterprises are assessed:
1. They must help us move towards our Holistic Goal.
2. They must not be too labour intensive.
3. They must complement our existing enyterprise. (We are committed woolgrowers.)

Other enterprises trialled/investigated:

Yabbies – we have 25 dams, many of which have populations of yabbies. We started selling yabbies to a firm from north coast NSW, after investing in 100 traps and a large holding cage. But the return on effort was not sufficient to warrant continuing. Yabbies are trapped now for entertaining guests and visitors from the city.

Worms – we bought several barrels of worm juice to apply to the paddocks with a view to installing 6 trays of worms to produce casting for sale to nearby vineyards. On paper this project did not meet our objectives, being too labour intensive and requiring a constant supply of large amounts of organic material (manure, etc.)

Fat lambs – our previous manager wanted to share farm a fat lamb flock. We declined for three reasons: 1. It would reduce the number of paddocks available for rotating the wool flock. 2. The danger of fibre contamination across flocks. 3. Insufficient feed to finish animals.

Grapes – we had a 50 acre paddock on a hillside that was suggested to us would be useful for a vineyard. This was aborted when it was discovered that the investment in trellises, etc was significant and this usage of the area locked it away, reducing the flexibility of the operation.

Chickens – the most promising enterprise is a mobile chicken house which it is intended will follow the flocks around, cleaning up the pasture of parasites and worms. This idea is based on Joel Salatin’s enterprise in Virginia (as described in “You Can Farm”) where his ‘chookerator’ moves among his orchard trees disturbing the soil and fertilizing the trees. The eggs will be sold through a local store at first. This enterprise has scalability.