In the video are: - Agriculture and Food | Department of ...



TranscriptTranscript3 Baron-Hay Court, South Perth Western Australia 6151Telephone: +61 (0)8 9368 3333 Fax: +61 (0)8 9474 2405Email: enquiries@agric..auIn the video are:Dr Daniel Real, Senior Research Officer, Department of Agriculture and FoodSimon Crane, Seednet Seed CompanyDavid Brown, Dandaragan farmerNoel Klopper, Boyup Brook farmerJordan White, farmerMurray Grey, Gillingarra farmerJonathan Nelson, Badgingarra farmerTranscriptDaniel:In the trial that we showed to farmers today, we had two main treatments; continuous grazing during the whole summer and autumn, versus our rotational grazing that was six plots with 14 days of grazing and 70 days of rest. To our surprise, the continuous grazing was equally good if not better than the rotational grazing, so that gives a lot of flexibility for farmers to use it.Today we had the first field day, presenting Tedera to farmers. Our trial is not how farmers will be using it but gives the basic information for them to make the decision of how they will fit it into their farming system.Simon:?We think it’s going to be an extremely valuable plant. Just the value of feeding over the dry summer, and then early autumn months, to have a plant to be able to substitute or eliminate those costs are going to be really significant.David:You know just the time it takes to hand feed sheep; a couple of days, and then you chuck hay on top of that, so then once you’ve finished with the cart with the lupins, you then go around and start feeding rolling hay out and so there’s virtually two days a week just tied up not doing anything but hand feeding.The sheep game is a fairly tough game as anyone that’s in sheep knows, and if a percentage of your program can be maybe not having to be worried about hand feeding, well then it’s going to be a huge benefit I think, and the big thing is they’re maintaining condition. In our operation we are probably using 200 tonnes of lupins plus a fair chunk of hay too, so it all adds up.Noel:?Tedera ticks a lot of the boxes, that we’ve seen today, it shows us that various stocking rates, quite high something like 10 sheep DSE’s per hectare, is capable of reproducing foliage fairly quickly and so that you can use it as a forage crop on a large scale to finish off a big line of sheep for export, which means that this sort of fodder production is going to lead to a lower cost of production in terms of work intensity and instead of buying grain in, you are going to actually produce it in your own paddock.Jordan:This has shown us a great deal of information as far as it managed to turn 30ml of rain over a three-month period into as much as was there before on the end of spring rain.And I'll be incredibly interested to see what happens with the cropping trial over this because as sad as it is; people are lamenting that we're putting this into a cropping site, you have to know that, or whether it can coexist in a rotation.What is it going to do for wheat?Murray:?The thing today that’s impressed me is just how persistent it is and forgiving it is of heavy grazing which is impressive and pretty exciting. We’re standing in with plants that have only been spelled for 23 days after 112 days grazing and they look fantastic and again I’m impressed by how the set stock stuff has recovered and that will be handy in a lot of circumstances but the appeal of the rotation and the health of the plants in the rotation, it's quite a strong clump, it doesn't look like it's going to go anywhere in a hurry. It has a deep root system, which will all help to stabilise the country and we have got some pretty fragile sand there, so I’m pretty keen to see how it goes in that sort of situation. I reckon that could be a real benefit.Jonathan:Yes this is the most exciting thing I've seen in years and years, I’m basically a low-cost grazier, retired from cropping cos cropping is too dangerous and too hard and too risky, so I'm an old low-cost risk-averse sheep farmer and this stuff is fantastic. The fact that it doesn't get away from the sheep, the fact that it can recover, it can stand continuous grazing, it’s just really good, and that’s made them good from a surviving point of view. This stuff survives anyway and it tastes all right. Yeah if only this stuff will come along, Tedera, was here 20 years ago I'd be a very happy man but still happy and there's still time for me if only they can rush it through, the seed production. It doesn't matter what it costs to establish per hectare because this stuff would contribute to my ability to be a risk-averse, happy farmer. I could even have a holiday in summer because with all this green feed you could whack your sheep on and plan to have a few weeks away and they’re not all going to die of thirst for instance because this obviously they’re getting water from this stuff too. This is the best thing that I've been to for some years.End of transcript ................
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