Background:
There is a lot of beautiful farming land on Queensland's Darling Downs. The AGR holdings at Leyburn are NOT part of it. The soils on the AGR holdings are light sandy loams over motley compacted clays. They supported scrub and wire grass when purchased. The 2,300 acres with 24 inches of rain per annum struggled to carry 400 goats and 25 head of cattle.
We are changing that!
The Objective:
AGR has set out to prove the commercial value of both AGR Soil Science technologies and AGR Stock Feed products through practical demonstration of both at Leyburn. The R&D activities conducted on the farm therefore include the Sodic Soil Amendment Agent and Humus Builder range, and the AGRiliq based Stock Feed products. The objective is to quadruple the carrying capacity of the property with a low on going cost of production.
The Plan:
The Plan is to progressive treat the soils on the property over a five year period increasing the stocking levels as the benefits of the AGR Soil Science technologies kick in.
The fully treated areas are sown to fodder crops such as millet, oats and barley with a mixture of improved pasture grass seeds planted simultaneously.
Rhoades grass is grown as a ground cover simultaneously with the millet, to provide year-round support for the soil ecology, and a continuous fodder crop for the stock.
All fodder crops are baled and stored for ‘own use' or fed off with no vegetative matter sold off the property. Once good grasses are established, further ‘own use' fodder crops are planted into the pastures with minimal disturbance to the grasses or soil.
The demand on the land is principally to produce the year round fiber and fodder requirements for the sheep and cattle as the live stock are supplemented with AGRiliq to meet the balance of their protein, energy, vitamin and mineral needs.
Progress:
Stud Dorper rams over a thousand or so mainly Merino / Damara ewes are producing quality lambs. Those not being retained for our breeding program are being sold as fat lambs typically turned off around 40-42kg live weight. We currently cannot meet the demand for these lambs. We anticipate growing our breeders to several thousand self shedders and then to produce a similar number of quality fat lambs year round.
The couple of hundred commercial cattle currently on the place are intended to complimentary graze (with the sheep). We are building a quality herd of breeders utilizing the genetics stud bulls. This program is already producing excellent calves, some of which are retained to grow our herd, whilst all of which are spoken for by repeat buyers.
