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Beef Breeder MANUAL
insecticides, or fungicides to remedy any signiicant challenges to the health of the pasture or forage. These
decisions need to be made with the conidence of the correct diagnosis of the problem, and access to
good equipment to apply the chemical or fertiliser, and competent labour skills to complete the task.
Newly sown pastures can be lightly grazed as soon as the plants have established roots that are suiciently deep
to prevent the plant from being pulled from the ground by the cattle. Early grazing has the additional beneit
of promoting tillering by grasses, i.e. establishment of multiple stems.
9.4. Pasture and Forage Management
Being able to successfully manage pastures and forages under grazing by livestock and forage conservation is one
of the most valuable skills for producers to develop. It is a complex skill that requires a good understanding of the
way that plants grow and respond to their environment; including soil type, fertility, rainfall, temperature, disease,
and grazing by animals, and cutting for conservation. Some basic principles to manage pasture and forage are
discussed below.
9.4.1. Area Required Stocking Rate
Ensure that there is suicient area of pastures and forages available to satisfy the nutritional needs of the
livestock on the farm. This can be roughly calculated by considering how many animals are to be fed for the
year, and their annual feed requirement per head. For example, for a 400kg animal consuming 2.5 of its
body weight as dry matter each day this is equivalent to 10kg per head per day. If fed all year, it will therefore
require 3,650kg dry matter per year. Then, knowing that a well-fertilised pasture on the
property is capable of producing 4,000kg dry matter per year, for example it would therefore theoretically
support just over one animal per year, assuming all the dry matter is utilised. However, substantial quantities
of forage are wasted due to trampling and fouling in grazed systems, and other losses in cut-and-carry
systems. It is therefore better to stay on the conservative side and plan to allow for these losses. Under grazing,
this may amount to as much as 60 or more of the pasture grown, and for conserved forages up to 25.
Consequently, in this example, the pasture used for grazing would only support less than 0.5 animals per
hectare, but if used as conserved feed may still support one animal per hectare.
9.4.2. Grazing
Graze as regularly as is feasible to obtain optimum feed quality. Feeding value declines rapidly with age of
regrowth as increasing amounts of indigestible lignin are laid down. Although longer intervals between
grazing or cutting may result in higher DM yields, animal production is usually poorer assuming similar amounts
of feed provided because feed quality is inadequate to support the anticipated level of performance.
Always maintain a green leaf residue after grazing or cutting. The rate of regrowth is initially directly related to
the amount of leaf remaining on the plants to intercept light and support photosynthesis. With severe cutting or
heavy grazing, there is a delay in active regrowth while plants redevelop enough leaf area to support growth.
Plants that are over-utilised will also see their root mass decline which afects the recovery of plants from
utilisation and stress.
For legumes, the amount of nitrogen ixed is related to the photosynthetic leaf area on the plant, thus leaving
a green leaf residue after grazing further supports the nitrogen balance of the pasture. It is important to
remember that the amount of nitrogen in a system drives the productivity of the system.
9.4.3. Controlling Weeds
