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Is the Forage Chain Concept the answer to summer ground cover

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Sustainable Agriculture

This is the idea that Phil Barrett Lennard from Agvivo took farmers through as part of a ground cover workshop at Talkin’ Soil Health 2020.

According to Phil, we can use different types of plants and feeds to create a year-round Forage Chain.

Different plants and feeds have different optimum windows for grazing.

The challenge is to link them together over the whole year, avoiding feed gaps.

Phil has been working on this area for many years including as part of the successful Grain and Graze program.

He is working with Wheatbelt NRM to demonstrate how these learnings can be put into action.

As part of the Optimising Mixed Farming project, Wheatbelt farmers are developing their own farm plans, taking a whole farm approach to identifying non-productive or marginal land and develop 5-10 year programs to plant species most suited to providing feed to eliminate hand feeding and meet the nutritional requirements of stock.

Maximising ground cover is recognised as an important contributor to improving soil health.

Delivered as part of the National Landcare Program, this work will be demonstrated over the next 3 years as the farm plans are implemented.

Find out more by contacting Jacquie Lucas jlucas@wheatbeltnrm.org.au

This Wheatbelt NRM project is supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.

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