A visit to Gippsland to witness the wonders of multispecies pastures in dairy

I recently had the privilege of visiting dairy farmers Sandra Jefford and Wilco Droppert at Wilandra Farms, and Kate Mirams and Peter Neaves at Newry in Gippsland Victoria. The farm visits were on the side of presenting at a multispecies cropping event with Grant Sims, organised by Maffra and Districts Landcare Network.

Image: Grant Sims in the paddock at Maffra and Districts Landcare network multispecies event. Source: Soils for Life.

Both farms have moved away from the typical high input rye grass, clover and grain based system to low input multispecies pastures. These multispecies paddocks were humming with life and diversity when I visited, and the dairy cows were contentedly grazing.

Image: Sandra Jefford of Wilandra Farms in a multispecies padock. Source: Soils for Life.

Image: Peter Neaves with the dairy herd at their farm at Newry. Source: Soils for Life.

Sandra Jefford pointed out a few weeds here and there, some of which had clearly been grazed – Sandra noted that in moderate doses, many of these plants can have medicinal and nutritive value for the animals. Typically, such weeds would be sprayed out with herbicides, impacting on soil health and introducing chemicals into the food chain.

Image: A visibly grazed Fat hen plant, a common ‘weed’ species that can in moderation have medicinal and nutritive value, in a summer crop paddock at Wilandra Farms. Source: Soils for Life.

The multispecies paddocks were alive with birds, butterflies, spiders and a constant hum of insects. Dairy farms are often abundant in water, making them playgrounds for all manner of species.

Image: Cows in a multispecies crop at Wilandra Farms. Source: Sandra Jefford.

Image: Orb weaver spider in a multispecies paddock at Wilandra Farms. Source: Soils for Life.

At Kate and Peter’s place, I looked at figures comparing their farm finances to a group of other local dairy farms involved in their benchmarking group. Of the nine farms in the group, Kate and Pete’s fertiliser costs were the lowest of all, but their pasture consumed was almost the highest. Put another way, their nitrogen applied was less than 5 kg per tonne of dry matter pasture consumed, with the closest farm up at almost 20 kg per tonne, and the highest at more than 35 kg per tonne. Multispecies pastures are low input and low cost, but still highly productive.

Image: Kate Mirams and Peter Neaves in their milking shed. Source: Soils for Life.

Image: Benchmarking results from Kate and Peter’s farm. Source: Kate Mirams.

Kate and Pete are also curious about how they can better utilise the effluent from the milking shed. They’ve been experimenting with spraying the effluent pond with biological liquids to see if this biology could stimulate fermentation and produce a more beneficial product to be returned to the paddocks, in effect turning the pond into a huge biofertiliser production unit. It’s early days, but the concept sounds great!

Sandra, Wilco, Kate and Pete are all passionate about producing high quality milk, and research by Dr Stephan van Vliet at Utah State University indicates that grazing dairy cows on diverse pastures improves the health of the animals and increases the nutritional value of milk, just as it does for humans (see our podcast episode ‘You are what you eat, and the soil it grows in’ featuring Dr van Vliet). But currently, there are limited avenues for dairy farmers like Kate, Peter, Sandra and Wilco to have their milk tested and valued for nutritional density. This is a huge area for further work.

If you’re interested in learning more about multispecies pastures, or experimenting with it on your own farm, check out our Practice Guide on Multispecies Cropping.

Huge thanks to Maffra and Districts Landcare Network for inviting me to the region, and to Sandra Jefford and Wilco Droppert, and Kate Mirams and Peter Neaves for welcoming me to your amazing farms.