Contrary to common practice ‘for the last 10,000 years’, the first principle is to sow into dry topsoil. Bruce describes this principle as a ‘10 metre start on the hundred metre sprint’: 

With No-Kill Cropping, as soon as we get rain, the seed sprints out of the soil. Whereas, if you wet sow, you’ll always have to do something about plant competitors because while you are waiting to sow, the competitors are germinating and growing, growing, growing. 

Conversely, with No-Kill Cropping, Bruce typically finds three or four cm of growth in cereals several days after rainfall events, while ‘the competitors are just starting’. To enable this ‘sprint’, Bruce creates a ‘one cm-deep by a half cm-wide disturbance’ in which to drop the seed as ‘the perfect seed-soil contact’. 

In addition to germination rates, Bruce observes that sowing when soil is dry and has maximum strength minimises soil compaction. Alternatively, ‘wet sowing goes over the soil when it is most vulnerable, just like road builders moistening soils before compacting them’.  

Bruce also observed how sowing with minimal disturbance changed the plants in his paddocks. When tilling, he would see a range of annual colonising plants return, whereas with little disturbance, ‘uneconomical plants reverted to mostly background, if at all’. Bruce says a return to tilling would mean an increase in germination of uneconomic weed species.

Principle 2 describes how to sow for both soil and economic benefits. For example, straight coulter discs minimise disturbance of above ground plant and below-ground microbial communities, as well as limit soil carbon loss. Existing plants, especially perennials are not killed by the impact of the coulter discs travelling over them.  In addition, dry-sowing with straight-running discs means a major decrease in resistance, fuel, and costs. 

Bruce considers almost every plant valuable for building grassland and soil health. To keep landscapes diverse and complex, he does not use chemicals or pesticides (including sourcing seeds without pesticide treatment). In addition, Bruce wants to ensure native species can compete with annuals, so he avoids fertilisers. By cutting these inputs, Bruce sees lower costs and reduced economic risk.

Bruce describes many benefits of integrating effective grazing and No-Kill Cropping. Not only do grazing animals cycle nutrients and add microbial diversity to the soil, but by having access to cereals in grasslands, Bruce’s cattle eat novel and diverse foods by choice. For example, after eating oat crops that are a ‘high energy and low toxin’ food, he finds cattle will eat ‘higher toxin, low energy plants’, such as Patterson’s curse.  Bruce observed that these increases in novel foods, along with the decrease in stress, increased the cattle’s health, and that increasingly, some customers are willing to pay a price premium for the taste, nutrition and ethics of animals raised in a low stress environment.

For Bruce, effective grazing management requires calm animals. Building on the work of Temple Grandin’s positioning (which Bruce describes as ‘Level 1’) and Bud Williams’ low stress handling (‘Level 2’), Bruce used livestock behavioural science to develop and codify a method of ‘Stress-Free Stockmanship’ in the year 2000 as a ‘Level 3’ behaviour management technique. His goal was to help animals learn positive behaviour in order to benefit the landscape. 

Then, after seven years of behavioural science collaboration, Bruce and Dean Revell co-pioneered Self-Herding (‘Level 4 behaviour management’). Instead of setting up expensive permanent fences and infrastructure, Self-Herding uses signals – such as sights, sounds and smells – to move animals across the landscape. Bruce uses Self-herding to move and position animals in ways that are directly responsive to their needs, and the needs of the land, thus improving the quality of the crops, animals and landscapes.