innovations attract

Innovations attract graziers from across the central west

By Colleen James

Producers took the opportunity to benefit from each other’s experiences at the inaugural Blackall Innovations Forum run by the Blackall Bestprac Group, Desert Channels Queensland and Grazing Bestprac, which attracted over 90 people from across the central west. There was a broad mix of sheep and cattle producers who travelled from far and wide to hear from other landholders about the innovations that have worked for them.

The day kicked off with grazier Simon Campbell from Norwood Station, Blackall telling how he uses a combination of satellite maps and photo points for planning his annual feed budget.

“The combination of the two takes the stress out of planning,” says Mr Campbell. “We buy the satellite imagery and then calculate areas and verify the data at a paddock level. Once we have established a trend we are able to make decisions a lot more rapidly.”
Jericho based graziers Glen and Natalie Williams have used a combination of water infrastructure, fencing upgrades and management practices to increase their carrying capacity at Granville Station by 700%.

“We knew what we wanted to do and decided that it could take us 30 years, or 10 years with an off-farm income, so we supplemented the on-farm income and made a huge investment that has paid off,” said Natalie. “Over the last 10 years we have increased our carrying capacity from 180 to 2000 through rotational grazing and infrastructure upgrades.

“Depending on the size of the paddock and the size of the mob we rotate between 4 and 5 days.” Natalie said, “The cattle are much quieter to handle and this takes one person about an hour.”

“Another benefit we have seen is an increase in soil health and pasture composition. We now rely on groundwater as we have hardly any runoff anymore and the small amount that we do get has no sediment because of the pasture health.”

The Williams do dung sampling to check on the nutrition needs of their stock. “We don’t wait till we have used the last three bags of lick in the shed, we use what we need when we need it through the water medicators,” said Natalie. “Sometimes it seems like we go out in the paddock and hardly look at the cattle because we are so busy looking at the dung.”

Rick Keogh from the Terrick Merino stud 100 kms south of Blackall spoke about what a group of graziers in their region are doing to combat their wild dog problem. He attributes teamwork, research information and an expert dog trapper for the successes that they have had.

The Blackwater Dingo Trust is made up of 18 properties and after trying a few different methods over the years has found that working together with a common financial input and responsibility has been the key to their success.

Data supplied to them from a DPI research project made them change when they baited and then hiring an expert trapper to clean out the stragglers has been bringing results.

From Olga Downs, 60 km north of Richmond, William Harrington shared his story. Returning from university as a computer systems engineer, William knew if he wanted to stay on the property he would have to use his degree to create some form of off-farm income.

He started the family company Harrington Systems Electronics and began developing some products that they would use on their property. After the pipe reader that reads and stores RFID tags came the uSee telemetry system.

“The current telemetry system runs off the NextG network and is powered by solar making it easy to install and very portable,” says William. “We know that a lot of people do not have access to the NextG network so we are currently developing a satellite version of the remote monitoring system.”

“The uSee gives peace of mind by taking photos of your water points showing that the stock have water. This saves time; money and vehicle wear and tear by reducing the number of water runs you need to do.”

William told producers, “We like a challenge and are always looking for new products to develop, so if you have an idea, come and let us know what it is.”

Peter Schmidt, from Alwoona Station, Wyandra told fellow graziers about the OBE Beef Pty Ltd company that was started back in 1995 by a group of channel country beef producers and has grown into a world-wide export business.

As director of OBE Beef Pty Ltd Peter said, “We wanted to ensure a future for the next generation while living an interesting and satisfactory lifestyle and sustainably using our land and water resources.”

“Our marketing focus is our unique and interesting region in the channel country that provides the traditional good flavour of our beef,” said Peter. “We needed to increase profits so that members could achieve adequate returns on our capital, so we employed consultants when staring out to assist with marketing, promotion and negotiation.

Peter said that the export business is a tactical business and that they have to be extraordinarily good at perpetual innovation while providing the highest possible standard of food safety and organic products.

“The group now has over 7 million hectares owned by families and represents one of the largest organic beef projects in the world.”

A demonstration of the Blackall Bestprac group’s E-sheep equipment allowed graziers to see how it works and hear about the benefits. The technology was designed to minimise the labour requirements when handling sheep in the yards.

Steve Eussen said by measuring the individual animal productivity and profitability the precision sheep management technology allows on-farm data to make effective management decisions and enables the selection of the highest producing sheep for meat and wool.

“The auto drafting allows us to meet more specific market targets because the risk of error is reduced,” says Steve. “We can set the drafting up two, three or five ways using either a weight parameter or, based on other information, a tag number. The sheep virtually draft themselves.”

Other speakers on the day were Mick Alexander from Grazing Bestprac, speaking on profitability of sheep and cattle in the central west and the need for producers to do their numbers and see how their business is going.

Lisa Wright, a clinical psychologist spoke about how the innovation was not depression, but the fact that she was invited to speak at the forum and she also touched on the support that is available in the central west for individuals experiencing psychological distress.

Phil Kemp spoke about their lamb feedlot in Clifton owned by a consortium of graziers, and Peter Hunt from McCracken’s Water Services spoke about water innovations.

Displays included breech strike management and Nutridose water medicators with David Counsell, GPS and property mapping with Desert Channels Qld, Grazing Bestprac, Harrington Systems Electronics, TrueTest, Telstra Countrywide, North West Primary Health Care and E-sheep.

People were able to taste the success with an OBE Beef sponsored bbq dinner and drinks sponsored by Allflex and TrueTest at the close of the forum.

Elizabeth Clark from Leander, Longreach said it was a really great day, well worth attending and it certainly gave us plenty to discuss on the drive home.

The Blackall Innovations Forum was an initiative of the Blackall BestPrac Group Inc, Desert Channels Queensland (DCQ) and Grazing BestPrac and was made possible by a Woolworths Landcare Grant and the Queensland Government’s Blueprint for the Bush program.