FARM GROUP ACTIVITIES TO ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Pasture cropping in changing environments KEY QUESTION Can I use a legume (e.g. snail medic) instead of oats in my pasture cropping system? LOCATION Rowellyn FARMER Terry Elliott REASON Terry has been using oats in a pasture cropping system to help renovate his pastures, maintain a growing plant, and to provide high quality feed in the late winter and early spring feed gap. However, Terry has been wondering if the inclusion of legume would improve his system because a legume could also produce its own nitrogen and still provide quality feed at the same critical time. Any nitrogen produced by the snail medic would be valuable because most perennial grass pastures are quite nitrogen deficient by late Summer and early Autumn. Snail medic was considered because it is easy to establish, with a large seed which can be planted onto moisture up to 50 mm deep in Autumn, and may regenerate from seed in the following years. METHODS This simple comparison was done by planting both snail medic and oats into an established pasture of Queensland Bluegrass and seeing how they grew. The paddock was low in Phosphorus (Colwell bicarbonate phosphorus below 10 mg/kg). While Phosphorus fertiliser was not applied, it will be in future demonstrations as both oats and snail medic should respond to extra phosphorus in this soil. RESULTS Both the oats and snail medic established and benefitted from a 50 mm rain at the end of August to produce useful feed. It was also pleasing to see that the snail medic set seed and so may regenerate next year.

This project is funded by GRDC and the Australian Governments Climate Change Research Program