Summary of comments from the Consensus field trip visit to Tabletop on 4 May 2022 :
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• Paul Jones ( DAF ) provided some details on the positive pasture monitoring results for the broodmare and black soil sites . Christian Roth reiterated the importance of accumulated biomass and that the monitored biomass was a point in time and did not reflect biomass removed by grazing .
• Paul recommended starting small when using livestock to remediate erosion sites - a small catchment with more fertile soils . He cautioned the need to be careful with sodic soils as it is hard to grow vegetation without organic matter .
• Rob Hunt ( NQ Dry Tropics ) noted that the UHD grazing was on quite a bad site and that the treatment ( fencing and UHD grazing ) had made a positive difference . Need to drill down to determine the changes and how much change . There is more to be understood , more research , but moving in the right direction .
• Andrew Brooks ( Griffith Uni .) noted that all gullies come with different characteristics - different soil types , landscape , etc . and we need to design the best solution for each site .
• Barry O ’ Sullivan ( Glenalpine ) commented that he had considered using banks to hold back water but , on balance , would probably rather fence and move cattle quicker to get a landscape impact rather than work on a specific site . This was supported by Bristow Hiughes ( Strathalbyn ) who said there was no point building banks until water and wire infrastructure was in place to allow shifting of cattle , aimed at improving the landscape .
• Bec Bartley ( CSIRO ) suggested that investment needs to be based on key principles - what are they ? Why and when ? Details to implement on property and time specific . The suggested key principles were :
o education ; o water o wire ; o shifting cattle ;
o how much of pasture growth to use ( Barry O ’ Sullivan commented that Glenalpine utilises 25 per cent of growth / graze period ); and
o shift of mindset of grazier .
• Rob noted that after the above key principles were applied , the things that still needed attention could then be addressed .
• Leanne O ’ Sullivan commented that , from a grazier perspective , it was good to be doing something slightly different , transforming the grazier view of being on this landscape . Change can be very positive : putting something into action and learning from that - the challenge of discovery to move forward .
• Rob noted that changing things up can be good for biodiversity and can create new opportunities - grasses , etc . Leanne noted that nature was variety and was rarely repetitive with nature never the same through different seasons . Graziers need to give back all the time - through the cattle , feeding soil for what it needs in its natural state .
• Andrew Brooks made a key observation that erosion was still happening on the main gully complex despite removing most of the water with the contour bank . There was deposition in this gully and it was actually growing grass but what was still being exported from the gully to the creek ? The question was what happens longer term ? Would there be continued deposition so they kept reducing and grow over .