Mosaic agriculture all 'go' in the Kimberley and Pilbara
Northern Beef Futures mosaic agriculture continues to expand its activities with field sites now selected for the first series of agronomic trials to evaluate the productivity and feed quality of a range of grass and legume forages.
Irrigated sites have been selected by research officers Geoff Moore and Clinton Revell at GoGo Station near Fitzroy Crossing and Kilto Station near Broome. These will compliment a site at Woodie Woodie on Warrawagine Station.
Woodie Woodie is also home to a 38 hectare irrigation trial as part of the Pilbara and Hinterland Agricultural Development Initiative (PHADI), led by DAFWA, investigating the potential of irrigated agriculture in the Pilbara.
The sites will cover a range of soil types from the black clay soils of the Fitzroy River floodplain to Pindan sands.
The Woodie Woodie site is expected to be sown in mid-September and Kilto a little later in October.
The GoGo site is planned for a January 2016 sowing, pending accessibility at that time of the wet season and will also include an evaluation of forages for dryland situations as well as irrigation.
Together with testing a range of representative perennial and annual species as stand-alone options, the trials will also look at the value of species mixtures, response to fertilisers and plant densities.
Tim Wiley has hit the ground running as the Mosaic Agriculture Development Officer based in the Broome office.
Tim and Operations Manager, Andrew Negline have held a number of discussions with pastoralists to better understand the opportunities for irrigated forage production in the rangelands and to identify information gaps that can be addressed through the trial program.
Topical issues include choice of species and varieties, plant nutrition requirements, weed control, feed quality and grazing management.
A number of discussions have also been held with industry groups interested in exploring new ideas such as the pelleting of forages.
Training options around the use of new forage production systems are also being developed and a group from the Mowanjum Station visited one of the forage field sites near Derby in late August.
The weed risk assessment of exotic species for use on leasehold land is continuing with two field sites established.
There has been a few challenges managing background weeds and keeping the wildlife outside the perimeter fence, but some interesting observations are emerging, such as the early productivity of some of the sorghums, lablab and cowpea.
Work on refining the assessment process is a collaboration with Department of Parks and Wildlife's weed scientist Christine Munday.
For more information contact Geoff Moore, Research Officer on +61 (0)8 9368 3293, Clinton Revell, Senior Research Officer on +61 (0)8 9368 3596 or Tim Wiley, Development Officer on +61 (0)8 9194 1442 or nbf@agric.wa.gov.au