The Producer Demonstration Site: Pasture Monitoring in the Rangelands, initiated in 2022, showcases the productivity benefits of routine monitoring and targeted management of key pastures species in the southern rangelands of NSW. Utilising a combination of on-ground monitoring and remote sensing data, the project tracks pasture production and groundcover percentages at four producer sites across 237,747 hectares in the Oxley and Booligal area s. Critical decision points in February and August align with pasture supply and demand for these regions, influencing management decisions such as feed supplementation, destocking determinations, and weaning. Therefore, biannual observations and pasture samples of four key pasture species are taken in late summer and late winter at each site. Pasture samples are collected to analyse the crude protein, digestibility and metabolisable energy through feed test data results. Remote sensing tools, Geoglam RaPP Map and Cibo Labs, are used to measure groundcover and green cover at each observation point. Core producers meet twice each year to discuss their sites and share management learnings. In the project's second year, notable findings include consistent composition of nutritional plants during autumn and winter across two monitoring sites. On other sites, shifts in plant quality were attributed to seasonal availability rather than nutritional changes. The key contributing plants of higher quality in August 2023 included Burr Medic (Medicago polymorpha), Barley Grass (Hordeum"¯leporinum) and Bladder Saltbush (Atriplex vesicaria). Noting that although these species may represent the greatest nutritional value and availability within a paddock, grazing preferences of sheep/cattle (Graetz and Wilson 1980) mean these species might not contribute the largest portion of the livestock's diet in all cases. The project will continue to track feed quality and its impact on livestock production in western NSW, further demonstrating the efficacy of proactive monitoring and tactical management practices in enhancing rangeland productivity.
Get reliable rangeland science
Toggle Search