A blend of medic and clovers had produced a bulk of feed on the property of Brad Davey at Port Neill, on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia. Mr Davey first sowed the SowSmart Medic Haygraze LR blend under a Maritime barley crop back in 2009 in an 89 hectare paddock. He said the paddock had been heavily infested with blanket weed, iceweed, barley grass and other species and the addition of medic was an opportunity to give it a good clean. “The paddock definitely had a lot of weeds so we thought we would get a bit of medic happening.” SowSmart Medic Haygraze LR was sown at 3 kilograms per hectare and germinated and grew well under the barley. Good seed set from the medics as the cover crop was being harvested assisted the blend in regenerating well for the 2010 season.
Mr Davey said the paddock was close to home so had a lot of stock rotating through it across the autumn, winter and spring. “I was very impressed,” he said. “We had lambs, hoggets and everything else running across that paddock. The sheep did really well on it. We could have put any number of sheep on it and they just were not keeping up to it.” “At stages it was 14 inches deep and very thick,” Mr Davey said. The paddock was continuously grazed through the year. Rainfall in the area is normally about 300mm rainfall which is why the low rainfall blend was chosen. In 2010 the rainfall figures were much higher and the forage made full use of the conditions with excellent production over many months. During 2011 the paddock was rotated into wheat, with that crop able to take advantage of the stored nitrogen leftover from the previous season.
Brad Davey, Port Neill, Eyre Peninsula SA
