A shift to multi-species pastures has been a farm-saving initiative for south-west Victoria’s Karrinjeet Singh-Mahil and Brian Schuler.
The changeover started nearly a decade ago, and the Crossley farmers say they might not be in business today if they hadn’t adopted the planting mix.
“With what happened in 2016, if we hadn’t been on this journey, we’d have been gone,” Karrinjeet said.
“We’re still here because we were able to manage with lower costs.”
The shift from monoculture pastures to multi-species was inspired by the impacts of a changing climate.
Karrinjeet and Brian — members of Farmers for Climate Action — have also introduced solar panels, a larger effluent pond, once-a-day milking and a recycle and reuse philosophy to reduce their footprint, cut costs and improve their family life.
The farm is now hosting trials undertaken by the University of Melbourne and funded by Dairy Australia to compare the multi-species pastures to more traditional rye-grass clover.
University of Melbourne Associate Professor of Soil Science Helen Suter said the trials were looking at differences between soil conditions under a multi-species pasture that had been in for some time compared to a rye-grass pasture.
The comparisons will include areas such as nitrogen storage, carbon storage, soil health parameters, microbial assessments and differences in root growth.
The initial trial started earlier this year and a second two-year trial began in June after additional Future Drought Fund support was secured.
Soil samples have been taken at both sites and there has been one harvest of both systems, but the data has not been analysed.
The Future Drought Fund project will focus on the ability of the pasture species to provide home-grown feed during dry periods.
Assoc Prof Suter’s research is looking into whether alternative pasture systems such as multi-species pastures can build and keep deeper soil carbon and be sustainable.
The trials are following usual farmer practice with pasture cages added to each site.
Karrinjeet and Brian decided to change what they grow almost a decade ago.
“We were having to re-sow more of the farm each autumn because the rye-grass pastures were not surviving summers and Brian noticed we had wind erosion happening between the plants,” Karrinjeet said.
“We started the move to deeper-rooted multi-species pastures and we’ve been continuing one paddock at a time.
“These days we never sow anything as a monoculture or even with two different types; it’s always multiples.
“We’ve got one paddock that’s had 12 or 13 species in it. We call it our ‘fruit salad’ paddock. We’ve only topped it up once and it’s been there for eight to 10 years.
“It’s one of those paddocks that’s always got something for the cows to eat.
“Now we’ve got fat, happy cows and it has cut our costs.”
The multi-species pastures mean the farm has feed in the paddock for more of the year.
“The cows have a way of going through when they arrive in the morning and picking out one plant and then they pick at different plants during the day,” Karrinjeet said.
“They don’t uniformly munch their way through a paddock like they would with rye-grass; they pick and choose and it’s working well for them.”
The farm buys little feed, apart from grain and some hay to provide fibre during winter, resulting in a huge cost saving, but Karrinjeet said the savings were a side benefit, and the move was for the planet and their children.
“It was our initial response to the changing climate,” she said.
“It was climate change that was causing erosion between the plants and it was climate change causing the lack of persistence of traditional pastures.
“Rye-grass is very shallow rooting. We put in different things; we use tillage radish now on heavier ground because it sends down a tuber that cracks open the soil and the drainage improves out of sight.”
Portions of the farm were previously prone to flooding even though sub-surface drainage had been put in, but that threat has eased because of the deeper-rooted plant species and tillage radish.
“It’s amazing what difference you can make with what you select and plant in your paddock,” Karrinjeet said.
She said multi-species pastures had something growing all year and the cover provided by the plants protects the soil from extreme temperatures that would otherwise damage the soil biota.
“I no longer see pictures of thick, knee-high rye-grass paddocks as healthy because it’s a monoculture.
“If I look on my plate and there’s only one thing on it — that’s not healthy. If I see lots of different stuff on it, that’s healthy.
“It’s the same with a paddock.”