There are around 1000 species of native grasses in Australia. They are mostly perennial, naturally adapted to our local conditions, tolerate low soil fertility and are drought resistant. As grasslands, they support a rich diversity of fauna and play an important role in maintaining soil health. From an agricultural perspective, native grasses have often been overlooked or even dismissed as having little economic value.
As pasture, native grasses have a range of production, economic and environmental benefits. They are nutritious, can be highly palatable to stock and are self-sustaining. Some native grasses grow actively during warmer months, others grow actively during cooler months, providing the potential for year-round green feed. With appropriate grazing regimes, native pastures can be maintained as a long-term, low input, sustainable farming system.
Native grasses can improve soil health because they are generally deep rooted, produce dense tillers and maintain 100% ground cover all year round, which promotes nutrient cycling and greatly reduces soil loss due to wind erosion. They can provide high levels of soil organic carbon and improve soil structure and nutrient availability. Some native grasses can also help to control dryland salinity by reducing recharge to ground water.
Farming systems which incorporate native pastures have the potential to improve long-term soil health and produce sustainable year-round grazing. The ability of native grasses to grow in acidic and nutrient poor soils, bind loose soils and create ground cover means that native pastures have great potential to increase farm productivity. Establishing native grasses on unproductive, unstable or salt effected soils, such as sand ridges, heavy clays or scalds, can not only stabilise these soils but over time provide pasture opportunities, returning such areas to production and profitability.
Birchip Cropping Group has been developing native pasture farming systems, including trialling native pasture cropping, in the Wimmera and southern Mallee since 2010. As part of a new native pastures project supported by Caring for our Country, BCG is seeking 10 landowners with areas of unproductive or degraded soils who would be willing to participate in a trial to establish native pastures on their property. A mixture of summer and winter growing native grasses will be established on ten properties with the aim of improving long-term soil health and on-farm productivity.
If you would like more information and are interested in participating in the BCG native pastures trial, please contact BCG on 03 5492 2787 or [email protected]
