Andrew and Megan Mosely at Etiwanda
Resilience in the Rangelands | Updated October 2024
‘In the last few good seasons, the results have really started to show what can happen when you’ve got the foundation right and get some of these practices in place. It doesn’t happen overnight.’ – Andrew Mosely
Andrew and Megan have been applying a holistic approach to farming for two decades on their property 90 km south of Cobar, and are now seeing their hard work and investments paying off. Their family has developed a deep connection to the area and the landscape since Andrew’s grandfather drew ‘Manuka’ in a returned servicemen’s ballot in 1949. When Andrew and Megan took over in 1997, the farm was running a wool operation and at the time faced significant challenges including degradation in the landscape through capped soils and Invasive Native Scrub (INS), which was inhibiting the growth of grass and profitability of the business. They started questioning what was going on and looking for answers, with the goal of creating a more productive, resilient and prosperous farm.
Andrew and Megan now run white dorper meat sheep, semi-managed rangeland goats and red angus cattle on the property. Grazing management is their key focus, however they haven’t created a standardised cell-grazing set up, and have instead taken an approach of creating better wire and water infrastructure in certain places to create targeted intensive animal impact from the three enterprises (sheep, goats, cattle), based on what that part of the landscape needs at that time. They now have 70 to 80 of these paddocks in their system.
Since making these changes, the Moselys have noticed they have more high-succession and better quality perennial grasses and less capping and bare ground. Generally, their property has more life than it used to.
‘When you start to look down, and look at the species and what’s going on, there’s a huge difference between this managed environment and the unmanaged conventional type environments in a similar area.’ – Megan Mosely
The Moselys saw the Rangelands Living Skin project as a great opportunity to trial some new practices in a structured way, to continue to move the landscape forward and to learn more about and improve their soil biology.
They see these management approaches as a real opportunity in the rangelands environment. In addition, they are interested in the potential of ecosystems services markets to encourage landscape improvements, however they wish to see these schemes incentivise meaningful actions in the landscape, and to take a more holistic approach to landscapes and enterprises.
One of Andrew and Megan’s key motivators going forward is to take their business to the ‘next level’ to be able to accommodate their daughters if they choose to be involved. Andrew and Megan’s daughters have grown up being exposed to Holistic Management, and this way of thinking is now second nature to them, in the way that they see the country and how they handle stock. Everyone working on the farm continues to develop their knowledge through courses undertaken together which is helpful for a shared understanding. Andre and Megan currently work on the farm with one full-time employee and would like to enable their two daughters to work in the business if they choose to in the future.
They have found the project to be really helpful in planning for this, and access through the project to business coaching and benchmarking has already made a huge impact on their operation. Having a coach with experience in family farming to bounce ideas off and to suggest ideas that perhaps they haven’t thought of before has been extremely helpful. In addition, Megan adds that it’s great to have someone who helps to coach them through their thinking about how they are making decisions, rather than telling them what to do. They have really enjoyed this process, and working with someone who has a lot of experience on extensive properties which often don’t follow ‘textbook’ behaviours. Similar to the other core producers, they have found being involved in the group and having other people’s insights in a peer setting has been helpful to find new ways of thinking.
‘We’ve all got our blind spots and hopefully that’s the idea with having the four of us involved, we can maybe highlight some of those blind spots and move the whole lot of us forward.’ – Andrew Mosely
(L-R) Andrew and Megan Mosely. Source: Grow Love Project
Image 1. White dorper breeding enterprise. Source: Grow Love Project.
Image 2. Red angus and droughtmaster cattle. Source: Grow Love Project.
Image 3. Mustering the flock. Source: Grow Love Project.
Image 4. Andrew and his daughter Jess classing their white dorper rams. Source: Grow Love Project.
Image 5. Semi-managed rangeland goats grazing INS regrowth behind electric fencing. Source: Grow Love Project.
Farm Facts
Location
Wongaibon Country, Cobar, NSW
Climate
Hot dry summer, cold winter
Average Annual Rainfall
426 mm*
Agro-ecological Region
Dry**
Property Size
20,000 ha
Elevation
230–260 m
*Sourced from MyClimateView.com.au. Farmer reported 390–400 mm.
Social Structure
Family-owned and operated
Enterprise Type
Semi-managed rangeland goats, white dorper sheep and red angus cattle
Landscape
NSW rangelands
Soils*
Red loam to red sandy loam
*Learn more about soil classifications at https://www.soilscienceaustralia.org.au/asc/soilkey.htm
Practices for Improving Soil and Landscape
The Moselys undertook Holistic Management training in the 90s, which started to answer some of their questions about declining productivity, biodiversity and increased runoff. They began to implement changes on the farm, including adding high-quality fencing to get some control over grazing and rest periods, and they started resting the country following rain events just to see what happened. They felt like they were ‘spinning their wheels’ at times during the first 15 years, with limited infrastructure and paddocks. However, they continued fencing and taking steps towards their goal for the property, and with the return of a few good seasons of rainfall, big changes were evident. They have observed that they could grow more grass using grazing management techniques that provide the landscape with the opportunity for rest and recovery based on the condition of the landscape at the time. They continue to make changes, see improvements and ask questions.
To date, they have found that grazing management has had the most significant impact in regenerating the landscape, over the largest area. Their grazing management is supported by a good quality total grazing pressure (TGP) fence around the perimeter and between paddocks that they can use to ‘bunch’ animals up in specific locations, to keep them moving and get beneficial animal impact across the landscape.
Because of their intensive rotational grazing, Andrew and Megan are currently able to run twice as many cattle (around 10,000 dry sheep equivalent (DSE)) than prior to their management change (and compared to the regional average), and combined with the sheep and goats are able to run 10–20,000 DSE. They note that this is partly due to extra grass growth from the last few years of good rain, but largely due to their grazing management and the combination of enterprise types working together. For example, the family has been using goats as a ‘landscaping tool’ for a long time as they eat the shrub species and help to open up the landscape again. This mix of animals in the landscape also provides them with flexibility and allows them to be responsive to changing conditions, and forms an essential part of their strategy.
Mechanical intervention
If the season permits, the Moselys grow grain in other areas that are licensed for cultivation. They then store and sell the grain for extra financial stability and flexibility to adapt to circumstances, which they were able to do in the last drought. They have also found that combining mechanical intervention with cropping ‘pushes the landscape forward quicker than just the stock’. Andrew explains that it can be a chicken and egg scenario if there isn’t enough grass in one location to create density in the mob, so they use mechanical intervention, such as direct drilling oats or multispecies pasture, and use only a small amount of fertiliser to ‘tickle the system’ to get it moving. They are not interested in using large amounts of fertiliser because they find it is ‘not economical, and doesn’t do the soil any good’. Now they are focused on improving soil biology and are trialling using biological stimulants on the seed as they sow it.
No-Kill Cropping
Bruce Maynard visited Etiwanda in 2022 to implement some No-Kill Cropping trials as demonstration sites. This involved single-tyne strips in hard-capped, compacted soils. Their experience so far has been that they need to create more disturbance. Creating disturbance as a once-off and then moving to a different area to give the soil a chance to re-balance has been successful. As a result, they have seen better grass species become established and greater grass diversity.
Image 6. An area that has been cropped the previous year and rolled with a crimp roller shows green growing annuals despite receiving less than 100 mm of rainfall. Source: Grow Love Project.
Image 7. An area that has been cropped previously and rolled with a crimp roller. Source: Grow Love Project.
Rangelands Living Skin trial practices
As part of the Rangelands Living Skin project, producers are running low-cost trials of various scalable practices that they hope will offer multiple benefits. The trials include a trial chosen by the farmer (demonstration site), as well as replicated trials across the farms and remote sensing data to reflect grazing management.
Farmer-led demonstration site: multispecies pastures
Andrew and Megan started trialling multispecies pastures a couple of years ago. They have seen encouraging results so far and are excited about the ‘huge opportunities’ of this method. In addition to anecdotal improvements in soil health, they find oats, in particular, provide them with additional options for their livestock. Being in a semi-arid environment, oats provide a quality forage source that allows for increased rates of weight gains to be achieved by livestock. They highlight that the multispecies areas are integrated into the overall design of the farm by being managed more intensively than other extensive areas to be able to hold and feed stock well, which also has the benefit of having the stock easier to access and sell.
One approach that the Moselys trialled through the project is running replicated trial sites of multispecies pastures and annual legumes. The multispecies trial includes one plot of a multispecies cropping mix of oats, vetch, a legume to fix nitrogen and provide a protein-rich feed source, cereal rye for carbon sequestration and buster radish to open up the soil structure, along with good native perennials. The other two plots included oats and a biostimulant, and oats with no biostimulant. These were sown in strips into a tilled paddock, in a randomised block design. In the same paddock, an uncleared/unimproved area and cleared but not sown areas were monitored as controls.
The annual legumes trial included five different hard-seeded legume species (serradella, Casbah biserrulla, bladder clover, gland clover and a legume blend including 40% Cavalier spineless burr medic, 40% Bartolo bladder clover and 20% Cobra Balansa clover). In May 2023, legumes were sown into the existing replicated trial area in small 3 x 40 m plots. Three replicates of each species were sown in a randomised block design. Prior to sowing, cover, biomass, greenness and composition were recorded in 3 x 0.25 m² quadrats within each plot. Legume establishment was measured in each plot 4–8 weeks after the sowing date, depending on rainfall. Legume productivity and persistence was monitored in spring 2023.
Image 8. Multispecies direct drill crop with less than 100 mm of growing season rainfall and very hot conditions in late September 2023. Source: Grow Love Project.
Image 9. Close up of multispecies cereal plants. Source: Grow Love Project.
Replicated plot trials
Replicated plot trials of biostimulants were undertaken across the four participating Rangelands Living Skin farms. The replicated plot trials provided an opportunity to investigate the soil and plant benefits of various treatments on a small scale in a scientifically rigorous manner.
The treatments were selected by the core producers in collaboration with the project partners, and in this case included biological inputs (bioprimers) and natural soil conditioners (biochar).
The treatments at Etiwanda included:
- Control: no application of treatments or sowing of new species. This is the reference site to which the other treatments are compared.
- Bioprimer (Solid): application of a solid biological stimulant material to existing vegetation/soil. The solid bioprimer was applied by hand at a rate of 250 kg/ha.
- Bioprimer (Liquid Foliar): application of a liquid biological stimulant material to existing vegetation. The liquid biofoliar spray was applied using a 15 L knapsack sprayer at a rate of 5 L/ha.
- Biochar: application of biochar to existing vegetation/soil. Biochar was applied at a rate of 10 t/ha.
At each site, three replicates of each treatment were established in mid-August 2022 in a randomised, blocked design (Image 10).
Andrew and Megan wanted to include biochar in the replicated trials as they have an issue with woody shrubs now dominating parts of their pastures, reducing the ability of native grasses to stabilise the soil and provide nutrition for their stock.
In the future, the Moselys hope to create biochar from these homegrown materials but want to know the influence of this on their soils before expanding to larger-scale production. Andrew says, ‘With 20,000 hectares, we can’t afford to use fertilisers. We want to use what is available on our farm to create bio-stimulants and conditioners to help cover a huge area.’
Image 10. Trial design for Etiwanda. Source: NSW DPI.
Remote sensing of grazing management
Changes in ground cover in response to the improved grazing management (managing stocking rates and resting paddocks) on Etiwanda over the last 26 years were assessed using remote sensing data. Using Landsat spatial data, the total ground cover on Etiwanda is compared with similar land types within 10 km of the property (benchmark areas), for each season since 1989. This method allows the impact of management to be separated from some of the temporal and spatial variability associated with seasonal conditions and different land types. A positive trend in the difference in cover between Etiwanda and the benchmark area from the time of changed grazing management would indicate positive impacts of changing management practices.
Insights and Observations
Grazing management and ground cover
Andrew reports that as a result of his management changes, he is able to run 50% more livestock than the previous generation, on less land (average of 15,000 DSE on 20,000 ha compared to 10,000 DSE on 26,000 ha previously). He has observed indications of improved landscape health, and while satellite data shows that overall groundcover levels have been similar to the surrounding region over time (Figure 1), Andrew has observed greater diversity of perennial grasses and says, ‘Our production is more stable than the boom & bust system that we had through the 1980s & 1990s.’
Figure 1. Ground cover trends between 1989 and 2023 on Etiwanda. From top: Percentage ground cover for Etiwanda (solid line) and the surrounding 10 km region (dashed line), with smoothed trendline for Etiwanda; Difference in percentage ground cover between Etiwanda and the surrounding region, with smoothed trendline; Seasonal rainfall (mm). The vertical dashed line indicates the beginning of management change. Note that intermittent invasive native shrub clearing and cropping and dense tree cover in some areas of the property makes analysis and interpretation of ground cover trends relative to the surrounding region difficult using remote sensing. Source: NSW DPI.
Multispecies crop trials
The dry season in April–November 2023 hampered the Mosely’s farmer-led demonstration trial. Their comparison trial of mixed crop, oats and seed treatment with a biostimulant product was unfortunately terminated in September following a very dry winter. Early observations of the trial site and examination of the crop roots did not reveal any visual differences between treated and untreated crop establishment and growth. Anecdotally, however, Andrew observed that, outside of the demonstration trial, legume seedlings innoculated with vermiliquid had better strike rates.
Replicated biostimulant trials
The results of the biostimulant trials highlighted the challenges of using biostimulant products in a rangelands environment, and indicated that management approaches that instead aim to support and grow indigenous soil biology may be more effective. The biostimulant trials replicated across the four core producer properties sought to explore whether foliars, solid vermicast, and biochar changed soil biological function and vegetation biomass, compared to a control site with no treatment. In order to monitor the impact of the biostimulant trial, a series of 25 cm² cotton strips were buried and monitored at 8, 12 and 14 weeks after applying the biostimulants. Soil biology breaks down cotton, so this test is commonly used to measure biological activity.
The application of biostimulants did not show a statistically significant change in soil biology or vegetation biomass after 5 months. This result needs to be understood in context. Soil biology and biological activity in rangeland environments is significantly influenced by soil moisture levels, and the variability of these can potentially outweigh any effect of biological stimulants. The trial highlighted challenges in applying the biostimulant products at scale and at optimal times to maximise their success in vast, diverse and climatically variable rangeland grazing systems. In addition, the high sensitivity of biostimulant products to seasonal conditions (e.g. soil moisture and temperature) may be difficult to avoid in a rangeland context, which may make it difficult to make biostimulants commercially effective in a rangeland environment.
While the biostimulant treatment did not show any effect, a Soil Food Web analysis showed that Etiwanda’s soils had reasonable levels of indigenous biological activity. Existing bacteria activity degraded the cotton strips over the trial period. At week 14 of the trial, all of the located cotton strips had lost 100% of their tensile strength. In addition, at 14 weeks, the biochar cotton strips could not be found, and on average between 8 and 10 cm² of the original 25 cm² cotton strips remained.
Greenhouse gas emissions and soil organic carbon
Greenhouse gas emissions for Etiwanda over the last five years have been estimated at an average of 2,233 t CO2e per year, the bulk of which is attributed to enteric methane. The analysis suggested that even a conservative increase in soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration would be enough to offset the average annual emissions produced by Etiwanda (for example, this could be achieved through a cumulative total of 0.05% increase in SOC over 0 to 100 cm over 25 years.1assuming a bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3.
However, the project team noted that there are challenges to verifiably sequestering carbon in rangelands environments. SOC levels are low in the low and variable annual rainfall environment of the rangelands, exacerbated by an inherited legacy of degraded and eroded soil. There are a number of constraints in rangeland soils, such as salinity, acidity and sodicity, that could make permanently shifting soil carbon levels difficult. In addition, assessments of SOC at a number of monitoring sites on the property revealed relatively high variability in carbon through the soil profile, making it difficult to verify small changes in SOC levels.
Despite the challenges in measuring soil carbon, the types of management changes trialled through this project, such as enhancing plant growth with remediation and grazing management, and encouraging a functioning soil ecosystem, can be effective strategies for land remediation even if SOC levels are difficult to increase in a measurable way.
Profitability
Over the 4 year period of the project, all four core producers including Etiwanda maintained a positive return on assets (ROA), with an average ROA across the four businesses of 3.76%. This is despite some challenging weather and industry conditions, higher than industry average transport costs for remote producers to get animals to market, and their decisions to sell stock at less than ideal prices during dry periods in order to maintain ground cover. These decisions are intended to build the soil and land condition and support ongoing future profitability.
Reflections on the project
In reflecting on the their experience in the Rangeland Living Skin project, Andrew noted that it was frustrating that the poor season meant they they did not yet have any statistical results from the trials, but they recognise that this is a consequence of marrying trial constraints with the emergent, responsive and long-term practice of stewarding the landscape.
Andrew also reflected how the Rangelands Living Skin Projects offers an important reminder that long-term profitability and resilience depends on sound resource management and that soil biology is one such imperative resource: ‘Soil biology is the key to driving improvements in our soil’s health and productivity.’ Recognising that their stewardship is always a work in progress, the Moselys are going to experiment with integrating both more rest, as well as periodic disturbance on their hard red soils, into their grazing and land management strategies.
Acknowledgements
This case study was prepared as part of the Rangelands Living Skin Project. The Rangelands Living Skin is a four-year project in the NSW Rangelands co-designed by farming families, scientists and collaborators to evaluate cost-effective practices – chosen by producers – for fostering a productive rangeland system now and into the future.
In this project, four core producers trialled a range of practices to improve landscape health, livestock production and business performance to ultimately achieve greater resilience from year to year. The project will create an evidence base to inform the widespread adoption of practices that benefit soil, plants, animals and people – the living skin of the rangelands.
Led by the NSW Department of Primary Industries and funded by Meat & Livestock Australia, this project is a significant investment in the southern rangelands. The Rangelands Living Skin project is a truly collaborative project involving producers, industry, government, academia, researchers, educators and extension specialists, and carbon aggregators.
Soils for Life gratefully acknowledges the generous contributions of the partner organisations in this project. We also acknowledge that the contents of this case study do not necessarily reflect the views of these contributors.
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