The abnormally dry August and September has seriously restricted pasture growth on hilly grazing country particularly those with shallow soils. Ground cover levels are so low that many hills would be at risk of soil erosion, with the current seasonal conditions indicating that levels may not improve this season.

These areas need to be destocked before the remaining vegetative cover is “walked out” or broken off by stock and blown away. This year there is no protective thatch left over from the previous year and so once this years growth has been depleted there is not much left to protect the soil surface.

Many landholders have been caught this year, the promising start and good pasture growth early had the expectation that hills grazing areas would carry the average stocking rate of previous years. The low moisture levels and the grazing pressure has kept plants small with low root volume and less ability to respond if given a chance at “spring growth”.

Some landholders had observed in July that pastures were under pressure and tried spelling the paddock for a time and found that plants were very slow to respond. These areas were on very shallow soils and also had low grass density with a high broadleaf plant percentage which has limited overall grazing production.

The dilemma facing landholders now is to risk losing the paddock cover knowing that it’s still a long way before crop stubbles are available and currently lambs are small and if feed grain is available, it may be too expensive to finish them.

In sloping land prone to water erosion, the minimal cover required is 75% soil cover from 3 tonnes per hectare dry matter. In hilly grazing country a rule of thumb is a minimum soil cover of 70% and a minimum pasture height of 3 centimetres. Some paddocks this year are already 60% cover in the grazed situation. Some recovery will still occur if destocking is immediate.

Lessons learnt from previous dry times have shown that keeping livestock on erosion prone soils for too long has exposed the soil to more risk or caused significant soil damage which can affect management and production in that paddock.

At this point there are still options open to landholders to make sure there is adequate soil cover to provide protection from erosion until next season’s growth.

Many landholders will have to consider selling stock, or feeding them in small containment areas or move stock to alternative grazing paddocks. By recent increases in yardings at stock sales some landholders are already exercising the selling option.

Landholders must consider all the options currently available before it is too late, including selling the least valuable and most marketable stock now and retaining young animals and good breeding stock for the business.

AUTHOR: David Woodard, Land & Water Consultant, Rural Solutions SA.

CONTACT: David Woodard, Rural Solutions SA Nuriootpa Office, Telephone 8568 6412, woodard.david@saugov.sa.gov.au