Failures outweigh success stories when it comes to establishing perennial pasture systems in South West WA but interest remains high among livestock producers due to the potential for increasing drought resilience.
According to recent surveys, confidence in being able to select and establish perennial pastures is low (about five out of 10). Yet, most said they would like to have perennials for extra green feed early and late in the season.
In response, South West NRM supported Southern Forests Community Landcare last month to facilitate a discussion around the ‘how’ of establishing perennial pastures in the Manjimup area.
Local vegetable and livestock producer Jake Ryan volunteered to host the event and show others the perennials he had established.
Local agronomist and Nutrien branch manager Adam Chapman, and Barenbrug rep Tim O’Dae also came along to help grow the knowledge base.
Jake started by addressing the ‘why’
“They’re great early feed options,” he said.
All you have to do is break dormancy, they don’t have to germinate, establish and then grow. When they break dormancy, they shoot 10-20 new leaves and then 2-3 weeks later you’ve got a fully grown plant, compared to an annual which takes 6 weeks to actually establish a good pasture.
“With perennials you halve that time. Then on the other end of the season you’re getting that green feed about two weeks longer than annual pastures, good feed options for finishing lambs or cows.
“Other benefits are they have a big root system going deep, so you’ll grow your soil in depth”.
Adam Chapman added his thoughts:
“There’s such a surplus of feed in late spring,” he said.
“We can make silage really well but our hay harvests around here, especially if we get rain, are pretty mediocre.
“In this area, with its geography and soil moisture retention, so many things can persist and stretch those shoulders out. Perennials can be beneficial instead of running a whole annual system where you’ve got a load of really good feed, but can’t utilise it at that time.
“Perennials can be a really good opportunity to remediate the soils if you’ve got compacted soils or shallow soils.
“Even in three year rotations, you see some really good recovery of compacted topsoils with phalaris and fescues that do a really good job of exploring the soil.”
The What
SWNRM Sustainable Agriculture Program Manager Peter Clifton asked what species growers should be looking at?
Jake said he used to sow a mix of phalaris, chicory, plantain, ryegrass, cocksfoot, clovers. But that had some issues.
“I don’t think perennial clovers did that well, they’re not good at competing with subclovers,” he said.
“Lucerne persistence is useless in that system too, it was there as long as you did rotational grazing, as in day in day out style holistic plan grazing, but as soon as you go for more set stock it doesn’t really persist.
“Chicory and plantain were quite handy but some of the chemicals we use on the veggies persists in the soil which hindered their germination.
“Having chicory and plantain also limits weed control options for the following year. Because we are in vegetable production, we need to make sure that we’ve got some of the nasty weeds under control, like doublegee.
“So, we’ve gone from a high diversity mix down to a grass-based perennial pasture. We now grow 4Front ryegrass, Holdfast Phalaris and Kanui cocksfoot.
“That way we can go out with our herbicides and control those weed species – doublegee, capeweed, thistle, things like that. Subclover is out of control at our place, if we stopped seeding our pasture it would just be subclover so we’ll leave the clovers out.
“If we have a few weeds in the pasture we don’t care, it’s more when capeweed is so thick it smothers everything out is when we go in and control it.”
Adam said phalaris, fescue and ryegrass, were the two most commonly seen to do well.
“Phalaris goes really well, and has good persistence, especially in the Pemberton area in the spud rotation,” he said.
“There used to be animal health issues with the Original Australian Phalaris and it used to clump up, but new varieties are a lot more prostrate. The feed value, although not as good as ryegrass, is really strong.
“Bealy Ryegrass (now 4Front) is really good.
“Cocksfoot goes alright but not always that successful in its establishment, it’s a bit weaker.”
Jake agreed.
“We have Phalaris that is now five years old and you can’t kill it,” he said.
“We’ve sprayed with basta and sprayseed and go in with selectives like fusilate and it just stuns it but it reshoots which is good because when you go into pasture phase it’s already established. It’s tough.”
Tim from Barenbrug made a few other suggestions.
“We released a product called Shogun which is a hybrid ryegrass, so you get that little bit more punch early compared, so you can be grazing 3 or 4 weeks earlier and still get pretty good persistence,” he said.
So for three years you’ve got a really nice stand. Our last release is 75% perennial and 25% Italian.
“There are beautiful soils in general in Manjimup, you can grow just about anything, but going into the lighter soil types things like phalaris and cocksfoot can adapt beautifully to those environments and perform really well.”
The How
So what hasn’t worked? Jake thinks the perennial clovers have struggled.
White clover, red clover perennials, lucerne.
“Sowing too deep is a disaster, especially if you go into bare ground, like after veggies,” he said.
“If you’ve had some tillage, you can easily sow too deep. You want to be able to see the seed tops on the ground, if not most of it on top of the ground.”
What about Chicory and plantain?
Adam thinks they’re coming, especially chicory, but they come with complications.
“The challenge is the herbicide options,” he said.
“They’re very good nutritional values, good grazing but softer to get going, probably tougher than lucerne, weaker than ryegrass.
“They are a little bit more difficult to establish with hungry sheep on there because they are pretty palatable”.
Jake says it’s important to take stock off them in summer, otherwise they chase the taproot down. Adam agreed grazing management was critical.
“If you’re going to put chicory and plantain in, I’d almost treat it like a lucerne establishment, I’d almost say you’d be at about 25% stocking rate for the first 12-15 months and you’re doing a few very light short grazes,” he said.
“You really need to try and establish that carbohydrate source under the ground before you can go treating it too harsh so you’ve got to virtually take that paddock out of your rotation for the first year at least.”
The When
So how important is grazing management in general?
Jake says it’s critical.
“If it’s a big mob, then we go one day in and out, if it’s a smaller mob we’ll split it up with hot wires and do 1 day one half and one day the other half then get them out,” he said.
“Especially in that first year of establishment, otherwise, they’ll knock them too much, annuals take over again and you lose the perennials, so grazing management is critical.”
However, just as important is weed management at establishment.
Adam says one of the biggest “weeds” for a perennial pasture is annual ryegrass.
Jake says weed management is “very, very, very important”! And weed pressure can also affect the time of sowing.
“(Perennials) are a weak plant when you establish them. We’re lucky I suppose because we grow veggies, so we go into a blank slate, bare paddock,” he said.
“Because we’ve got irrigation in the paddock, we can establish in March/April. (Without irrigation) I wouldn’t be establishing perennials until September when it warms up, otherwise it’s just too cold.
“Establishing without irrigation in April is quite difficult because it’s hard to get a knock first on your weeds as they germinate. You need two knocks then seed it.
“If you end up seeding in May/June and it’s cold then they’re extremely slow, sub clover and ryegrass are going to dominate it.
“We used to wait until September to seed perennials. So, in August go in and spray it off with glyphosate or basta, leave it for three weeks, go out with sprayseed and then go in and seed it so you’ve got a blank slate and no competition, because they are just weak when they’re small.”
Establishing perennials can be great for extending the season, providing green feed for longer, and can have great benefits to soil health.
Key Messages
- Preparation is important. Make sure you address soil pH, nutrients and control weeds early in establishment so the perennials have a chance to take off and outcompete the fast-growing annuals.
- Grazing management is important for the persistence of perennials.
- The species that are recommended around the Manjimup/ Pemberton area are perennial ryegrass, phalaris and cocksfoot. Other species like chicory and plantain are also good options but reduce herbicide options.
We’ll have more Perennial learning opportunities in the future so stay tuned via our E-newsletter for details.
In the meantime, you can check out the collection of resources available in our Grazing Land Management Library via the button below.
