Theme 33: Technology Transfer and Education

Description

We are entering an era of landscape design in order to simultaneously tackle largescale issues such as salinity and rising water tables, whole-farm profitability and the maintenance or enhancement of rural communities. In Australia, an important element of landscape design will be the reintroduction or broadening of the base of perennial grasses within farm systems. The goal of this project was to accelerate awareness and adoption of perennial grasses in a large but ecologically-specific area, namely the already-cleared steep uplands in the high rainfall recharge areas of the Murray-Darling Basin. We used a participatory model, in which land-managers made monthly observations of grassland composition and condition, and of livestock. This paper describes the project, some of the outcomes eg that stocking rate varied more within grassland types than between types, and could be relatively high, eg 10 adult sheep equivalents per hectare on indigenous grasslands. Land-managers' data eg height, were coupled to correlations with other variates such as dry matter and leaf area, to derive seasonal estimates of digestible dry matter-on-offer, and environmentally-important variates such as seasonal evaporation. Collection of these data by land-managers creates opportunities for local awareness and the development of regional data sets which are not possible through traditional small-plot research. In our view, land-manager participation, leading to awareness and in some cases enthusiasm, will be a prerequisite for regional landscape design.

Share

COinS
 

Grassland Landscape Design: Working with Land-Managers

We are entering an era of landscape design in order to simultaneously tackle largescale issues such as salinity and rising water tables, whole-farm profitability and the maintenance or enhancement of rural communities. In Australia, an important element of landscape design will be the reintroduction or broadening of the base of perennial grasses within farm systems. The goal of this project was to accelerate awareness and adoption of perennial grasses in a large but ecologically-specific area, namely the already-cleared steep uplands in the high rainfall recharge areas of the Murray-Darling Basin. We used a participatory model, in which land-managers made monthly observations of grassland composition and condition, and of livestock. This paper describes the project, some of the outcomes eg that stocking rate varied more within grassland types than between types, and could be relatively high, eg 10 adult sheep equivalents per hectare on indigenous grasslands. Land-managers' data eg height, were coupled to correlations with other variates such as dry matter and leaf area, to derive seasonal estimates of digestible dry matter-on-offer, and environmentally-important variates such as seasonal evaporation. Collection of these data by land-managers creates opportunities for local awareness and the development of regional data sets which are not possible through traditional small-plot research. In our view, land-manager participation, leading to awareness and in some cases enthusiasm, will be a prerequisite for regional landscape design.