Grazing crops to fill a winter feed gap in a changing climate

Integrating livestock into a cropping scenario can have beneficial implications for a mixed farming business. This includes maximising profitability, manipulating planting windows, efficiently producing high quality feed, and reducing risk to a mixed farming business from both a cropping and livestock perspective.

In a broadacre cropping scenario, the use of livestock to graze the crops such as wheat, oats, barley or canola before removing the livestock and taking the crops through to the final harvest stage can have benefits to whole farm profitability and productivity while reducing overall risks.

This is done by establishing a crop early to gain early biomass and widen appropriate planting windows. Livestock are then utilised to remove the excess biomass and fill a critical feed gap, where pasture growth may be at a minimum. This can benefit the livestock by providing good amounts of high-quality, high-energy feed, generally at a time when seasonal conditions, such as cold and wet, can limit pasture growth on pasture paddocks. The livestock are then removed within an adequate time frame to allow the crop enough time to recover. This allows pasture that is growing slowly to be rested while reducing the requirement for supplementary feed for the livestock, as well as generally having positive outcomes for the livestock’s condition and production and therefore improving overall farm profitability.

From a cropping perspective a widened planting window makes for easier time management at the time of establishing crops, without increasing the risk of having the crop flower too early. If a plant is exposed to frost at the point of flowering it can have detrimental effects on yield. Grazing crops has the potential to delay flowering by 7-14 days. In some cases, there is evidence showing that it was even possible to increase  the final grain yield harvested.

Grazing crops has the added benefit of diversifying income streams across different commodities, as well as staggering the monetary benefit from the high up-front costs associated with a broadacre cropping scenario. If done well in the right season grazing crops can consistently be done without any negative effects on the yield of the crop. This has the overall effect of increasing farm profits, while reducing risks in varying climate scenarios.