On-farm drought advice and resources

Welcome, everyone, to our morning webinar this morning, which is titled, putting the El Nino into perspective. 

Our presenters today are Matt Lieschke and Phil Graham. Matt is a Senior ag advisor with Local Land Services. 

And Phil Graham probably doesn't need a lot of introduction and is currently working as Graham Advisory. 

You want to change the slide for me please Matt. 

Before we get started, just like to, on behalf of Local Land Services, acknowledge that it stands on Country, which always was and always will be Aboriginal land. 

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land waters and we show our respect for Elders past, present and emerging. 

We are committed to providing places which Aboriginal people are included socially, culturally and economically through thoughtful and collaborative approaches to our work. 

And I'm currently today sitting on Wiradjuri land in the Riverina, and I pay my respects to the Wiradjuri people from our region. 

Just a bit of housekeeping for those people who want the best viewer experience. We recommend that you start joined by a desktop computer if possible. 

The session will be recorded today, and will be available on our YouTube channel to view once it becomes available and is edited. 

If you have any questions during the presentation, please use the Q&A function which is in the taskbar at the top of your screen. 

In most cases, and at the end of our presentation, there will be a QR code to fill out our post-event survey. 

Just before we go any further, I just wanted to recognize this webinar is supported by the Southern New 

South Wales Innovation Hub and DPIRD New South Wales Farm Business and Resilience Program, with funding from the Future Drought Fund. 

And we thank them for their support in our programs. 

And I think we might be close to starting off with you Matt. Thanks, Geoff. 

And good morning, everyone. To kick things off, I'd just like to start with a case study. 

And the case study is 2023, because I think what we've experienced this year is, in a lot of ways, is very similar to what happened in 23. 

So if we cast our minds back to 23, you might recall that in 23, a bit like this year, there was talk of a potential El Nino event. 

That conversation kicked off in autumn in actually late, late March and back in 23. 

The the talk and the momentum about a developing El Nino and what that might mean for for winter, spring rainfall certainly grew in momentum as the year progressed. 

And producers were like this year, quite concerned. 

And then in 2023, I've got some screenshots there 

on the on the slide that shows the the spring outlook and these these outlook maps were for September 

and October, were released on the 31st of August 23. 

And as you can see there, there was a lot of brown shading on those maps and indicating 

for a large part of Australia, including New South Wales, a an increased chance of below median rainfall. 

And the the dry forecast for spring was strongly picked up in the media, and many producers reacted 

by reducing stock numbers into a rapidly declining market. 

It's interesting, though, that the rainfall forecast is only part of the story, because I a forecast doesn't take into account soil moisture levels, and also how much feed is in the paddock. 

And a lot of this conversation and discussion this morning will be around a website called Farming Forecaster, which has been around for a few years now. 

But what it does is it actually brings all these factors together. It brings in climate, soil moisture and pasture availability. 

And interestingly, back in 23, despite the dry forecast for a a dry spring, there were some real distinct differences across the South east region. 

So in this case study, I'm going to look at three sites in the south east in 23. 

And that being Boorowa, Goulburn and Braidwood. So three different locations. 

But as you'll see back in 23, three very different outlooks for spring. 

So the first one, the first location is Boorowa and the Boorowa region and surrounding areas in 23, a bit like this year, actually 

had a good winter in terms of rainfall and pasture growth. 

And on the left hand side there, we've got some soil probe readings at the 3rd of September in 23, and we can see that there's some really quite high numbers there. 

So if we're seeing moisture percentage readings here of around 100%, that's indicating a fully saturated profile. 

So for Boorowa in 23 coming out of winter, as you can see there, we were pretty close to a full profile of moisture down to 60cm. 

So we're pretty close to saturation. On the right hand side. At the same point in time. 

We have a screenshot of the pasture forecast, which is from this website, Farming Forecaster, 

and we'll step you through in a moment how these forecasts are developed and how to really interpret the information. 

But the key thing to look at in the pasture forecast is where the lines 

on the graph, where they sit and their position relative to the green, the yellow and those red shaded areas. 

So the green shaded zone is above average in terms of green pasture. 

So if we're tracking in the green zone we're happy we're above average. The orange zone is below average for green feed. 

So feed supply is below average if we're in the orange zone, but still manageable. 

And the red zone is the bottom 25% of years. 

And that's when the model's indicating that we're in difficult territory. 

So if we look at the pasture forecast for Boorowa in 23, the region went into spring with a lot of feed in paddocks. 

And we can see that with our black tracking line here, you know, up around the 90th percentile so well, well, well above average in terms of green feed coming out of winter. 

And if we look at those forecast lines, even if a very dry scenario 

were to eventuate, which is the red line, the modelling was suggesting that peak pasture production was likely to occur here in early October. 

So below the normal but still above the long term average. 

So the long term average is really that intersection of the the green and the the orange zone. 

So the modeling was saying even if it was going to stay dry, spring was going to be above the long term average for that region 

because of that very strong starting position in terms of pasture and soil moisture. So for the Boorowa region and a lot of those locations 

in that part of the world, there was no need to really react in response to those dry spring forecasts, that things were going to be okay. 

Interestingly, when I went back and modelled the '23 climate data through grass grow, the black tracking line is actually what happened at Boorowa. 

So we pretty much did track along that red line, the forecast line, because spring rainfall was 

was quite dry, well below average as predicted, but still an above average spring eventuated. 

We'll now move 100km. 

South east across to Goulburn and a little bit of a different scenario. 

So Goulburn in 23 had a much dry winter compared to Boorowa. 

And we can see that there in those soil moisture probe readings coming out of winter, you know, some some pretty good moisture 

there in that top 10 and 20cm, but still quite dry in the subsoil. 

So not as much moisture as a buffer going into spring. 

And if we look at the pasture forecast a bit like Boorowa, we did actually have quite a good starting position, green feed was again, well above average going into spring. 

And we can see there that if we were to follow the red line, which is a very dry scenario, 

the peak spring was going to occur quite early and then tail off. 

But what it was indicating that it wasn't going to be a disaster. 

From a management perspective, it was signaling that, you know, spring was going to be below average, and some slight 

tweaking to management might be required, but certainly no need for for drastic action at Goulburn. 

And again, when we modelled the 23 data, the black dotted line is actually what happened in spring of 23. 

So pretty short, sharp spring was had. 

And interestingly, that late November rainfall which turned up, you can see that bit of a kick on the far right hand side. 

There was about 110mm at the the end of November for Goulburn. And a lot of areas got that rainfall across New South Wales in late November. 

And we actually end up having quite a wet summer. 

The third location is Braidwood and now we're moving further south, drier winter again, and we can see that in those moisture 

numbers or percentage figures coming out of winter in 23. So a much drier profile, a tougher winter. 

And if we look at our black tracking worm on the pasture forecast, we were tracking not up in the green zone anymore, but actually starting off at the edge of the red. 

So we're in the bottom 25% of years in terms of green feed coming out of winter. 

And if we look at those projection lines, it was indicating that there's a, a quite a strong chance of a failed spring for Braidwood. 

So three different locations, the same forecaster spring in terms of rainfall, 

but three very three different locations with very different risk profiles in spring 23. 

The black tracking line is what happened to Braidwood. So it really did. It really was a failed spring because of lack of spring rainfall. 

But but again, we can see that late spring rain, sorry, that late November rainfall, which really did turn things around and was was a saving grace for that region. 

Right. 

So the website, if you haven't been onto this one, it's farmingforecaster.com.au. 

It's a freely available website. 

And what it does is it brings together soil moisture, local weather, pasture production and livestock performance information into a single dashboard. 

It's a web based tool, so it's not an app. 

You access it through your web browser, and even though you can look at it on phones and it does work okay, 

I think you'll find that it does work much better, or the information is much easier to view on a larger screen. 

Once you go onto the website, you can click on the click on the Get Started button, 

which then takes you to a map of Australia and the map in Australia, 

the Farming Forecaster tool covers a large part of New South Wales, some locations in Victoria and Tasmania as well. 

So you click on the map to your region of of interest. 

Once we go into New South Wales, the the blue shaded areas are the areas that are currently covered by this, this tool. 

And so you click on your relevant local Land services region. 

And you can then go in and have a look at soil moisture levels and some of this pasture forecasting information. 

So what I'll do now is I'll just go into some of these LLS regions and we'll have a look at what the moisture probes are showing. 

So these probes are what we call capacitance probes. And they measure plant available soil water or soil moisture to depth. 

On the website, we generally go we generally display saw soil moisture levels down to 60cm 

And so if we look at the probes in the central west LLS region. This is a screenshot from this morning. 

And what these percentage numbers are indicating is the is the average soil moisture down to 60cm. 

So again if we're seeing 100%, it we're means that we're fully fully wetted up and saturated. 

You can see the are a number of of these circles where the probes are showing that we're, 

you know, quite wet, you know, above, above 75% moisture in that top, 60cm, 

if it's above 75% that that means the pin comes up as a green colour. 

We do have one site there on that far left hand bottom left hand corner Jemalong which is down at 61%. 

And if you actually on this map view and click on the dot, it brings up the individual layers and what's going on. 

And so we can see there for Jemalong the reason why it's 61%, which is an average figure in the top 60. 

IJemalong is like a lot of these sites that are looking a bit drier still have very good soil moisture 

in the top 20 to 30cm, but it's really that drier subsoil that's bringing that overall percentage number down to to a lower level of 61 at the moment. 

So the map view is really good on farming Forecaster to have a look at an overall picture of what's what's happening in that particular region. 

And as we go through, you'll notice that there's there's some white text with a few sites. 

This one's Parkes, and Phil's going to have a bit more of a deeper dive into some of these specific locations as we move along. 

Moving across to the central tablelands region which sits next door. 

And again, if we look at the the probes at the moment in Central Tablelands, a very, very similar story. 

A lot of sites there showing very good soil moisture at present and a few sites there which are still good, but it would again 

be just those that subsoil moisture, which is a little bit dry further down. 

So we'll move now to the south east. 

In the south east it's a much more variable picture, where we're seeing some real distinct differences across the region. 

And this is very similar to what we actually saw in 23. 

And what we saw in 23 was a clear sort of line, almost where the dividing range sits, where, you know, you could draw a line between the Act and up through Crookwell. 

There's been a lot more rain out on the western side of the range so far this winter. 

And as you can see there, there's a lot more of those pins west of that line that are showing, very, very good 

soil moisture, some are up around saturated conditions at the moment, whereas unfortunately the rain that's been drifting across 

hasn't quite got to Goulburn And further east, you know, there has been a bit of rainfall through there, but certainly not as much. 

And we can see there a lot of those soil moisture probes around Goulburn and further east looking a bit drier. 

And if we look down at the Monero, where again, unfortunately the Monaro had a bit of a mixed start to the year. 

A lot of sites down there did have some really good autumn rainfall, but things have certainly dried off in the last couple of months. 

And so we're seeing a much drier, generally much drier conditions down on the Monaro. 

Moving across to the Riverina. 

Again, we're seeing a bit of an east west trend generally with certainly soil 

moisture levels east of east of Wagga looking very, very good thanks to really good rainfall in the last few months. 

And then we have actually had some improvement in soil moisture levels west of Wagga more recently with with some rain, but you can see 

some drier sort of sites further out on the far left hand side there as well. 

And finally, the Murray, a bit of a similar trend to the Riverina where we have a bit of variation depending on rainfall and what's happened in the last few months. 

But again, we can see a number of sites here that have, you know, up around sort of fully saturated conditions down to 60cm. 

But there are a few sites there, as we can see, with one at 36%. 

And 53. 

So there are some drier sites out there that will be really looking for some some rainfall in August to really try and get some more moisture into the system and get a bit more confidence heading into spring. 

So for all of the all of the dots on the map that you that we look we're looking at here 

for all of these locations, the dots represent where we have these moisture probes. 

But in addition to having the moisture probes, we've also developed a customized grass grow farm system. 

So Grass Grow is a modeling program developed by CSIRO. 

And what Grass Grow does is it enables us to get a preview of what to expect in the coming months in terms of pasture growth and seasonal risk. 

So for any of these locations, if you click on them and go into more detail, you will see that there is a pasture forecast developed by Grass Grow. 

And if you click on the the More Pasture Details button on the website, 

you will be able to see a lot of the the assumptions that go into the grass grow farm model that has been developed for that specific location. 

So this is the Boorowa model. 

And we can see here that if you go on the website you can see what the enterprise is. So this is a self replacing merino flock. 

There's some information there around lambing times, stocking rates, what pasture has been modelled. 

That's a really important one. 

Just to have a look at what the assumptions are around the pasture base, soil fertility and so on. 

I'll, I'll hand over to Phil to talk through how we use grass grow. Thanks, Matt. 

And just to back up matt's comment, people often don't go and look at what the pasture species in the in the farm system. 

It's critical if you're going to look at a site that you've got some idea of what the species, if we change the species, it'll change things. 

One of the things I just want to step through. Farming Forecaster doesn't give you one answer. It gives you a range. 

And we often use a lot of data. So Matt talked about before there was that shaded background, the three colours. How do we get that. 

We get that off 30 years of historical data. 

So we go back 30 years so often at present we're going from 1996 through to 2005 because they're the last 2025, because they're the last completed 30 years. 

And there's always a time period we're working on. And normally what we're showing you is, is, is four months. 

So each of these lines is the pasture production that occurred at a location 

based on that farm system that Matt showed, which doesn't change over the 30 years. 

Stocking rates stays the same, pasture stays the same, soil fertility stays the same, everything's same. 

And you just get this big spread as you expect. We get we get this through spring, we get dry years, we get really wet years. 

So that's the it's that data which we then turn into, turn into, Turn into the next slide. 

So all I've done there, instead of having lines. I've just got dots representing every seven, seven days of those lines. 

And I'm not worried about what the years are. 

And I've just ranked them from the lowest herbage mass is green herbage mass to the highest. 

Hold it, just the technology problem. 

Matt, could you give me an idea of what you're seeing, please? Yeah, I've just got the 30 years of the dots. 

Yeah. Can you. I'm just having trouble moving my now. I'm right. Sorry. 

Is it clear? Yep. 

Right. Now, if I put 30 years of dots up there, it's just too hard for people to see. 

So all we do is we just select a series of dots. So the red line Matt talked about, it's the 10% line. 

So all we do we go up there's 30 dots. We go up 10% of the way and we join all the third dots. Gives us the 10% line. 

The 25. We go up a quarter and we just grab those. 50%. We go up to the middle point. 

We just grab those dots at the 90%. We go three down from the top. 

That then gives you the coloured lines you see on farming forecaster. 

So it's taking 30 years of things that have occurred at that locality 

in each of the localities on the site, and we're giving you a range so that, that that gives you the shaded bit behind. 

And that's a critical thing of Farming Forecaster. The numbers on the left hand side aren't that important. 

What you're really looking at is where is the current situation, which is the black tracking line sitting in terms of history. 

And as Matt said, if you're sitting up in that green zone, that means at this point in time, you're above average. 

If you're sitting down in the red zone, historically, you're down in the bottom quarter of years. 

And if you're underneath the red zone, you're in you're in diabolical difficulty, right? 

It's that relative position that's the most important piece of information that this site gives you. I'll go back to Matt. 

I'll go back to Matt. Right. Yeah. So if we just go back to the Goulburn example. 

So Phil's just walked us through how that shading and how the data is calculated 

to get the shading, which is the historic, and then the black line is now how we're tracking this year relative to history. 

So currently at Goulburn. So this is actually a the current pasture forecast for Goulburn at this site. 

We are tracking well in the in the green zone because of of mild conditions and good growing conditions this winter. 

On the graph we also have these three projection lines. The colored lines. So there's the 90th percentile. 

There's and by default well actually we can select up to five different percentiles. 

By default on the website you will always see the 10% which is the red line, the yellow line which is the 50th and the blue which is the 90th percentile. 

So you can turn turn them on and off. If you just want to look at one line, you can just, you know. Click click click the the appropriate box. 

So how are these projection lines produced. 

Well it's the same sort of method as Phil described to do the to to do the shading but to produce those projection lines. 

The model, the grass growing model is spun up to the current date. 

And then so in this case it's let's say it's the the 25th of July. 

And then based on today's starting point in terms of soil moisture and pasture conditions, 

Grass Grow uses climate data from the last 30 years to do 30 runs. 

So in other words, based on today's conditions, what would happen if we went and grabbed the weather data 

for this location from 1995 for that forecast period and did a run so you would get a run for 1995. 

weather a data set. It would then do a run for 1996. You get another line 1997, 1998 and so on. 

So what happens? And I've just these are just theoretical lines, and and I've just put a few there. 

But hopefully you get an appreciation that you would end up with 30 possible outcomes all off the same starting point. 

And again, like Phil said, we could show you 30 individual lines and say, well, this based on historical weather information or climate data, this is what's possible. 

And you would look at it and go, well, it's just a spaghetti graph and I can't really make any sense of it. 

So rather having 30 individual projection lines, we go back to percentiles and, 

and and as you can see there for Goulburn that is those 30 individual runs are now represented by those different coloured percentile lines. 

So in other words the blue line which is the 90th percentile of those 30 projection runs. 

That's indicating where pasture conditions could get to. 

So this is green herbage under very, very wet conditions or ideal conditions for growth. 

Now if you look at the BOM forecast for spring, looking at the blue lines, pretty unlikely. 

If we look at the red line that's the 10th percentile of those 30 runs. And that's where things could go under a very, very dry scenario. 

And you might recall in that 2023 case study back at the start, that's actually how things played out in 23. 

We actually tracked along that that red projection line. The yellow line is the midpoint of those 30 runs. 

So that's what you might expect to see if we get average conditions for growth in that forecast period. 

So the projection lines give you a sense of the likely range in pasture availability going forward based on current conditions as a starting point. 

And then what's happened at that location in the last 30 years. And so we have that. 

So we're using we're using historical climate data to look ahead. And then we can then look at what the BOM forecast is for our location. 

And then have a think about, okay, based on what the forecast is, the long range forecast, which line are we most likely going to track along. 

likely going to track along. What are the what are the chances this spring of given our current position, where might feed go? 

You know, we know what soil moisture is around. And I've made some assessment of rainfall. 

And what I'm going to show you now for about seven sites is that I've gone and taken the worst possible scenario. 

I could find re rainfall for the August, September and October period. 

And it basically falls to one year and that's 2006. 

And I'm going to just run instead of giving you a plume or the lines, I'm just going to look at what does 2006 give us into the future. 

Now, this historical data we've looked at before gives us some important information at all sites. 

So where the where the brown and the green meet. That's that's is, you know, that happens half the time. 

And I regard that as an average spring. 

And every time I ask producers if I can guarantee you an average spring this year, are you happy? And I haven't had a person say they wouldn't be happy. 

So if we look out on the history at the highest point, if you like, and we we draw an artificial line, we can regard that as the average spring for this location based on the last 30 years of data. 

Now, to try and put some relevance on that, if we go to the top of where the red hits, the brown go across. 

So that's the one in four years or below, three and four years above, I've called that a failed spring. 

Now we can have a debate about whether that's the case, but I think as a guide, what we're looking for is some information 

to give us a bit more confidence about where we're going to sit, to firm up the decisions we make. 

So the next slide, next couple of slides I'm going to talk about if we reach the average spring, or if we reach the failed spring. 

The closest to the average spring, your system works okay. You're going to have enough feed. You'll go past Christmas, you'll have dry feed into the summer. 

And then it starts, depending on what happens late summer, what develops. But you know, your system travels okay. 

A failed spring, you might do very well. Stock might do fantastic up until about Christmas time. 

But after that, ground cover is going to become a bit of an issue. 

So you might have to take some management, you know, stock are going to go into containment areas a bit earlier. 

Some stock might be sold off at slightly earlier or lower weights. 

If we're down in the red zone, we got to make more radical decisions because the 

situation we're dealing with is becoming a lot more difficult. That's just trying to give you a guide. 

And the other thing this data tells us is roughly when on when do we normally see the spring peak. 

And this is pretty typical of just about all sites. 

You look at the drier and is the earlier the peak gets and the bigger the season the peak gets later and later. So there's two things when we're looking at this data. 

How are we traveling relative to the herbage mass and how are we traveling relative to time. 

So we get two pieces of extra info off the stuff we're going to start looking at. So I've started at Bookham. 

So you'll each site you'll see the same. 

So up in the top left hand corner is the moisture probe data. So as Matt was saying before, soil moisture as of the end of July is really good. 

That is in fact correct. That should say 2006, not 26 2006. 

In 2006, there was only 46mm of rain for the month of August, September and October. 

So that's the rainfall and the corresponding temperatures from that year. That's the that's what I've used to generate that purple line. 

So here's the starting point for Bookham. As of the 26th of July 2026. 

So our starting point now, I haven't shown the 90%. The top of that green in all of mine is the 75%. 

So this year is in the top 25% of winters that this area is experienced in the last 30 years. 

When we put 2006 rainfall of just that on, that's 

can be the expected green herbage that this area will experience. 

The peak is here's the peak right at the end here October. At this time, the peak is a month earlier in September and it drops off. 

There's our average spring. There's our peak. 

Even with that rainfall, given our conditions we've got at the start, this area is still going to see an average spring. 

So what happens out here really doesn't matter. The red line, which you'll see in each of the graphs. 

The red line is the 10% line that farming forecaster produces. You don't see one year in farming forecaster. 

All you see is the ten, the 25 and 50. And as Matt said earlier, if I was looking at the graphs now, I'm not ticking 90%. 

I'm not ticking 75%. 

The two lines that I'd look at most are the ten and 25, and I might tick the 50 as well. 

So 2006 is going to give us a lot better performance than the 10% line. Normally the 10% line we associate with dry conditions. 

But when you're in winter and when you've got a full soil moisture profile, this red line being lower is due to waterlogging. 

This is caused by wet winters on top of an already wet soil. So we get waterlogging, which is a real negative for pasture production. 

And we've seen it in this area back in 22 and 23, substantially. 

So when you've got conditions like this on country that does get waterlogged, in fact a dry winter and early spring is beneficial. 

And we're seeing that in the production. You're not going to see that at all sites. So that's that's Bookham. And you could you could look at think back to the the maps of the moisture probes. 

There was a whole range of sites on the western edge of the Great Dividing Range and the eastern edge of the south west slopes, that that are sitting at similar sort of moisture level. 

So this sort of data is relevant to all of those sites. 

Still at Bookham, everything the same, the shading's the same, the red lines the same. 

The, the top line is exactly the same. But I've just done some "what ifs" there. 

The first "what if" I said was, well, what if our starting herbage mass on the 26th of July 2026 isn't up there above the 75% line, but getting closer to the 50% line? 

Same soil moisture. Our starting herbage mass is lower and that's what happened. That's the dotted line. And in fact, we basically play catch up. 

We don't quite get as high. But but whether we're up there or here, that really doesn't matter. And then the other line is the blue dotted line. 

What I've done here is I've said our herbage mass is the same, but we haven't got as much soil moisture. 

So at each of these levels, I got rid of some of that, I got rid of some of that, I got rid of a lot more of that, and I got rid of most of that. 

So instead of this averaging somewhere in the 90s for this dotted line at most likely was sitting in an average of 50 to 60. 

Initially for the of August, The dotted line performs just the same. 

And then that lack of moisture I took moisture out artificially, took more straight out of the system. That lack of moisture starts kicking in, it goes sideways and then it drops off. 

So I'm just trying to give you some, some indication about, well, what how might it how might things perform where I am. 

So what this shows is it's it's the it's the soil moisture that you have to handle the dry period. 

If you're behind a bit in herbage mass that's of less, less impact than the soil moisture one. 

And you can see the soil moisture by looking at the probes around your geographical region. 

A question came up about what if you got lighter soils. 

Bookham is a light soil. Lights are if if you're travel, it wouldn't matter where you are at present. 

A lot of southern New South Wales, regardless of soil type. You're all you're all regardless of soil type. 

You're having an above average, above average winter. So this is to some degree independent of soil types. 

It's, it's that's why we look where the black tracking line is against history. Light soil types will move these numbers up and down. 

But it's where you track. 

So even if you've got lighter soil types and you've got moisture in your soil, if you're if you're above average for current herbage mass 

and you've got moisture in the soil, you're still going to track better on your light soils than you have historically. 

It goes across everything. There was just a question about the north west. 

The north west is just in the process, north west LLS of increasing number of sites. There's only one at present. 

There's another one being worked on at present west of Moree. So you talk to your local LLS about that sort of thing. 

Now we'll go to Wollogorang. So we're now south east of Goulburn again. Let's look at it. It's the moisture. Very similar. 

Or it might showed from 223 moisture at top. But we've got a much drier profile as we go down. 

206 at this site, there was only 34mm in the three months from August to October. 

So that's that is what drove drives that solid line. Purple line. Where are we at the start. 

We're up on the 75% level. We really go sideways. Bookham went up. These have gone sideways. Why have they gone sideways. 

Because they haven't got the moisture, and then they drop off. 

So they're not going to get the chances of getting to the average spring is remote. But there's the fail spring line there above that. 

So there's somewhere in between these two sites. 

Now if you think if I'm and that's the 10% line running through there. 

If I'm running my cursor along here, all of that is this year. 

That is a block of feed that you're extra feed you're growing compared to what occurs in an average year. 

So that this is only green feed. We're only showing your green at this stage. 

That feed when it dries off is meaning you're going to have more dead feed in your system than you would in a normal year. 

And for one only one site. I've done it, but the same logic applies at every site we look at. 

This is the dead feed in your system from, July end of July through to the end of October. 

That's the 25% level. So that's in a quarter of a year. That's the amount of dead feed you're going to have in your system. 

So here this is when spring is starting to is peaked. Feed is starting to dry off. 

So green feed is coming down, dead feed goes up. That's the 50%. So in half the years, that's the amount of dead feed you've got in the system. 

This is the amount of dead feed we've got in the system when we use the data from 206, much, much higher than the 50% line. 

And where's this feed come from? It's come from the extra feed you've grown already in winter. 

And you will continue to grow through August and early spring. 

If you've grown extra green feed, it changes from green, but it stays in your system as dead. 

And that's a tool you've got to use with, to use. 

One of the key things to bear in mind is the earlier a spring cuts off, the higher quality, the higher digestibility of that dead 

feed, the higher energy, the higher protein, and the better stock are going to do on that dead feed. 

The bigger the spring, the lower the digestibility, the lower the energy, the lower the protein and the worse the stock perform on the dead feed. 

So even if our herbage mass is down a bit, because from a from a truncated spring, 

we've got better quality dead feed, and the performance of your stock on that dead feed might surprise you, and you might find 

you have you're having no trouble turning stock off at normal weights, even though the total amount of feed you've got is down a bit. 

So we always get this trade off between quantity and quality. So let's move on. We're now at Bibbenluke down in the Monaro. 

You can see the moisture again. I'll let you look at those. Drier. I've put two lines here. Because '06 and 25 were very similar. 

They both produced about 75mm from August to October. 

And the other thing I've done for Bibbenluke is I've gone out to the end of the year because we've got, we've got altitude here, we would most likely be at 700, 800m. 

And the same will apply once we get into some of the Central Tablelands sites and sites up in Crookwell. 

Once we get altitude, if we look where the seasonal peak, I've only shown up to the 50%. 

So the peak peak of spring down there historically doesn't occur to December. So that's why I've gone out longer. 

At present at this site, it picked up a bit of a bit of rain earlier. They got a kick. 

So they're sitting maybe just above average, but if the dry occurs, there's the black line from '06 and '05. 

The green 25 is the green dotted line. You get a response which is quite different. And that response is also a function of of their season's a lot later. 

So pastures have the ability if moisture comes of responding. They've also got pastures down there that can respond to summer rain. 

Remember we're really in a summer rainfall environment. 

So as soon as we get closer to the coast or we move north in New South Wales and we get summer environments, what happens out here in November 

and December can end up, if you like, counteracting. We've got a poor spring, but we get out of jail because what happens out here. 

Really, when we look at November and December, it's too far out to have any confidence about what might or might not happen. 

That's something that we'll review as we go through the year, but at least it's it's showing there's there is some positive even in the 

with even 206 rainfall in September, we still are getting a bit of an increase in herbage mass. 

And we do in fact get up and touch around around average level. 

So the biggest problem, on the Monaro is the lack of moisture in the soil, which is not surprising. 

They've got the Alps in the way, and any rain that comes from the west doesn't get over, not an environment, unfortunately. 

They've seen they see too often. 

But this is a site which doesn't look great, but I still think, there's time on the side for these areas because of their locality and altitude, 

such that the start of the starter spring mightn't be good, but the end of it could be quite different. So it's a wait and see position to me. 

We go to Parkes in the central West. Yeah. I'd say moisture for this time of year at Parkes, that's most likely pretty good. 

206 only gave 19 mm of rainfall in that three months. So where's our Parkes starting position? Exceptional. 

You know, we're getting up into territory that they wouldn't have seen very often and decent moisture. 

But when you put 19 mm onto that which is that track, it's going to it's going to go down. 

But if we look at it there's that we could draw a line and say, that's the peak of an average spring for Parkes in early October. 

They're above that level already. 

So it could be for Parkes if if the worst case scenario ends up occurring in this year and this is really what 2006 is is about that's remember I said that at the start. 

What I'm giving you is a picture of virtually the worst case scenario based on rainfall we've had over the last 35 years at each of these locations. 

Things are going to drop away very quickly. But you have you've got a buffer to start off with. 

Just out of interest to try and put it in a bit of relative context, I was able to, at the Parkes site to go and just run it. 

This is the green feed that was actually in the system in 2006. So obviously, things had been really tough autumn wise. 

We go, the spring peak never, the spring peak never got above about 5 - 600 kilos and it dropped off again. 

This is where we are in 2006. Here's the starting position in 2006. 

In terms of green feed, this was the starting position in to 2026. 

This was the starting position for green feed in 2006. After that, the weather climate used is exactly the same. 

But there's this massive difference in starting position. 

And it's this starting position which is the big buffer which will help this region get through, the dry that might be coming. 

Now down at the Rock in the Riverina. Again, very good soil moisture at the top, not quite as much down below. 

Pretty typical. 206 43mm in that period. Where is it starting? It's starting at about the 75% level. 

We've got moisture in the soil, so we kick along for a bit instead of the peak being in, say, the first week of October. 

It's looking like the peak might be a month earlier, but that is occurring at about the long term peak. 

So you're going to get your spring. It might dry off a little bit, but you've still got a spring. 

That extra feed you've growing in here will be reflected in the dry feed you've got in the paddock later on. 

So again, this is looking to me like a fairly comfortable position. Savernake down in the Murray. 

And sort of we're between Corowa and Berrigan to give you a picture. Soil a moisture, bit different to what we've seen. 

We've got green down below and brown up the top. 

One thing looking at this site is the highest, the first sensor is at 20cm. 

A lot of sites the first sensor is at 10, this one's at 20. So always check what the height is. One thing I haven't put on the other graphs, but I'll put here. 

This is only an annual pasture. 

So what pasture mix we put in was based on the information we got from producers in the area. And that came back is we're just having an annual pasture. 

And that's partly explaining why we're seeing this soil moisture, the annual pasture, not as deep roots. 

It's sucking up moisture, but it's they're not really even now getting into the 40cm. 

So my guess would be if we had a ten centimetre probe, that the figure there might be 50% and going down very quickly. 

And it'll keep doing that. And this site will most likely dry off and leave moisture at depth. 

Now, if someone's down in that region and they've got perennials or they got got lucerne in the system, their performance will hold for a lot longer because those roots will get down and utilize this moisture down here, which these annual species aren't. 

So again, the '06 rainfall, 30 mm. Starting position. Excellent. 

We hold and then we start dropping. Really because as temperature gets up, these annuals will take a fly. 

We'll we'll run into moisture problems there. And also annuals are annuals, they're day length driven. They want to run up a seed head. 

And if they get under a bit of pressure they just start doing it early. 

Look, I'm sure all of us are outside seeing barley grass plants with seed head up already. So so there's the there's the spring peak. 

There's the failed spring. So you're sitting sort of maybe halfway in between. You'll see even historically, even in wet years, everything dries off. 

Historically 50% of years there's no green in this system down here at the end of October. 

So the good winter will provide the buffer you're going to go through. 

You've got you've got a herbage mass sitting between these two, our failed and our average. 

And I think you're in territory, given the quality of the feed that's coming across, that from a season and animal production point of view, things are looking looking more positive than negative. 

And the last one I'll show is Scone in the Hunter Valley. 

I put that up because here's a site which is which is starting off at the difficult end of the situation. 

Scone, the Hunter Valley has had it very tough, summer and autumn, and it was only rain event in late May that really kick things off. 

So if we if we look at '06 again, which is at the drier end, things keep improving really. 

But they're down in, we're down in the difficult territory. Right. 

So that's the pink and the brown remembers there's 1 in 4 years below that and three and four years above. 

But this is, this is can get summer rain. So how do I look at this? 

Well, if things stay dry, we're actually tracking in a in a better direction. We're not heading downwards. We're heading upwards, which is always a positive. 

And then really, what happens in this late October, November, December period can make a huge difference of whether this in fact goes pear shaped for us or whether we continue and end up in in territories which aren't too bad. 

You regard this is more a summer rainfall than winter rainfall environment. So again, to me this is showing a positive trend. 

If the season's better, that will keep going up higher. 

Long term, we really need to see what's happening later in this year to work out where we're going to be. 

But the critical thing at present is this is not heading down into the white, down into the white is disaster territory. 

So the more you, the more you head away from that when things aren't good to start off with, the better. 

Few people have come through and said, oh, some sites haven't got the green on there. 

The reason I haven't put the green on there, there's no point when all the stuff we're looking at never gets up into that. 

So, you know, I don't bother showing this historical data when we're we're down in the below 50%. 

Just get more concentrate, get better, clarity on the screen rather than just putting the green in the top, which for these people at present is artificial. 

So in summary, what does farming forecaster do? 

Whether you're a farmer or an advisor, it gives you a fuller picture of what's happening right now and what's going to happen in the future. 

Of course, it puts together soil moisture plus pasture plus rainfall. They're knowns. 

Now let's be very clear. A forecast tells us what might happen in the future. And it's an odds forecast. 

What farming forecaster is, this is what we've got today. This is what soil moisture we've got today. 

If we use the range of climate, whether you've experienced for the last 30 years, 

it gives you an idea of potentially when you put all those things together, where might you be heading given the current forecast? 

Don't look at the blue line. Don't look at the 75% line. 

It's more likely the red or the 25, or maybe the 50 that becomes the important ones. 

It gives you localised data. So it isn't a general map of New South Wales. It's data at points across that map and it's unbiased. 

It's not someone's guess of what the soil moisture is. That's what the probes are telling us. 

We use grass grow to do the pasture modelling. grass grow. 

I first used grass grow in 2000 with producer groups. Is it perfect? No it's not. 

But I tell you what, it does a bloody good job of, estimating what, what pastures, 

out there and the impact of different climates on that. what pasture production is. 

Each site that's on farming Forecaster. 

The producer whose property the probe was on, was sent the grass Grow modelling and asked, do you think this is representative of your area. 

And to go up on the site, it was because the producer came back and said, yes, we think this is representative. 

So what we show is what Grass Grow is, is estimating over an extended period of time. This is what it's saying in the last five years. 

Does that match up with what you see? So if you like the the the testing of whether the model is solid has come from the producers in the area. 

The model uses every piece of information. 

It uses moisture, it uses temperature, it uses humidity, it uses solar radiation, it uses wind speed. 

This has proved itself over a long period of time. 

If if the model was no good, we wouldn't we wouldn't be putting it in farming forecaster. 

Anyhow, I think for some sites that are that have got good herbage and good moisture, you can be confident about where you are now. 

There'll be other sites that most likely will want to see what happens during the month of August, and the plan is to run another one of these towards the end of August, just to update things about where things are going to. 

But I think the 2023 is a good example. 

I, I was asked to speak to a group of producers in the Harden district in the month of August. 

We just put up the data as, as we've done today and what the farming forecaster data said in this area, in the Harden district, 

you are going to get a spring regardless of what happens with the forecast. 

And a lot of producers came up to the end of the day and they said, Phil, that was our gut feel. 

We were going to be okay, but the amount of noise we were getting from the outside about El Nino, we were starting to doubt our own judgment. 

And what farming forecaster did for these people was their own judgment was correct. They got some independent quality data to back it up. 

They sat sweet and everything was fine. 

So it has shown itself to do a good job in other years, which have quite a few similarities to what we're experiencing now. 

And at that I will stop. Thanks, Matt. Thanks Phil. 

We've we've just run a couple of minutes over time, but I'm happy to hang around and answer a few questions which have come through. 

I think, Phil, you've you've answered a couple of these as we've we've progressed. 

There was a question from Frank Egan about a probe in Braidwood. There used to be probe in Braidwood. 

Unfortunately, it was put in in 2016 and about 12, 18 months ago from memory, 

it basically broke down and we just didn't have funding at that point in time to, to, to fix it. 

So but there is still a pasture forecast for Braidwood. 

And then there are a few sites, there's one at Jerangle, which is not far from Braidwood as well. 

So there are some actual probe sites in that, in that area. 

Matt, there's a probe about 16 K's south southwest of Braidwood. 

So there's one before Jerangle. Farrington. Yeah. Farrington. Yes, yes, yes. And there's one up. There's one at Bungendore. 

There is, there is a pasture forecast done at, at Braidwood. Sorry. Five km out of out of town. 

There is a, there is a pasture forecast done for Braidwood, but there is no probe. Yeah. 

There's comments about a lighter soil types. Yeah. Like Phil went through that. The northwest region. Yes. 

There's just the one side in northwest at the moment at Somerton. Frank mentioned about like local conditions. 

So I guess the intent today was really a statewide snapshot. And to go through a couple of examples, across the state. 

And, you know, we've just sort of cherry picked a few different locations, but hopefully you've got the gist of the information and how to look at those pasture graphs and the soil data. 

And you can now go and have a look on the website in your own local areas. If you have any questions, feel free to to reach out. 

And and also local LLS regions, some regions are looking at doing 

some more localized updates where we're looking at specifically, you know, the local patch and and going a bit more detail there. 

So keep an eye out for for some events coming up in your local regions. I know Murray LLS for example, of have a webinar coming up. 

I think it was the 18th of August where they'll be having a closer look at conditions specific to the Murray. 

Would you ever consider, would you ever extend the historic data comparison beyond 30 years? 

I understand there's likely complications with data available, but it might also show a larger global trends. 

Oh, look, we we can, if we if we do it. 

Actually, some of the data I showed was showing you today was from 1983 to 2026. 

If I showed you 30 years or 45 years, it makes very little difference to the historical data sets. 

So we've looked at that over time. 

It's not a big driver the last 30 years is we've got, enough, everything's occurred in the last 30 years that in, in has occurred in periods longer than that. 

And there are there is we can't go back to far because we just haven't got the data at that level. 

So I don't think, I don't think that the, the data length we're using is influencing the positive or negative, any, any of the outcomes. 

Just the other thing about it, we should mention that the Northern Tablelands at present has got nothing but the Glen rec 

Landcare group have received money and then over the next 12 months we'll see probes, potentially 5 to 8 probes go into the Northern Tablelands, which will start covering up there. 

And as the north west becomes a bit more comfortable with what the program is doing for their regions, there could be some more more expansion in that area as well. 

And Victoria's Victoria's coming on board quite strongly. 

So in another 12 months there could be 20 sites through Victoria, which adds value to the southern New South Wales as well. 

The bigger the, the bigger the spread of these sites across Australia, the more power it provides for everyone, 

because we can all see the trends that are going on in terms of changes in seasonal conditions and therefore what that might do to markets, etc.. 

So there's a QR code there for a survey. 

You can fill that out just by scanning that QR code with your phone. 

And yeah, if you wouldn't mind, just taking a few minutes to fill that out, we would really appreciate your feedback. 

It helps us to not only gather your thoughts on on this morning's webinar, but also helps us to shape and plan for new events and content that you'd like to see in the future. 

So if you wouldn't mind just scanning that with your phone and and filling that in over a cup of tea or something, that would be very much appreciated. 

So I'll just leave that up there. But, yeah, there's I think we're sort of covered majority of the questions that have come through, if you have any, and just getting a bit short on time as well. 

But if you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out. 

More than happy to to answer any questions you might have after today. 

Just one question there, Matt. 

From early on in your presentation where you're doing Borrowa and you had it in the dotted black lines, was that actually modelled what happened 

in terms of pasture growth, or was it a measured, what happened to 2023? Yeah, that was modelled. 

So I just grabbed the 2023 climate data for that location and ran it through grass. Grow to see how it compared to those forecast lines. 

So you're comparing apples with apples because the model was used to produce those those forecast lines. Ground truthing. And it's interesting. 

That question does often come up. 

And really the ground truthing is, is comparing how that black tracking line is is compares with what you're seeing in your local district. 

And it's very interesting, the last few months driving around different parts of the state and having a look out, 

look at what pasture is in paddocks and where those black tracking lines are on a range of models. It does. 

It has been lining up very, very well. So that's I guess that's, that's the sort of ground truthing, 

you know, that you can do is looking at what's, what's in the paddock versus what, where that black tracking line sits. 

And, and as Phil mentioned earlier, when we, when, when we originally developed the grass grow farm systems, there is a, there is a fair bit of cross-checking 

that happens between the producer that that hosts the, the site, and, and, and going backwards and forwards 

and just make it and making sure that the outputs from the model are reflective of what is seen in that, that location and that, that sort of production system. 

Very good Matt. Given that we're probably run over time, we might have to pull the pin there. 

And, you know, final questions that we haven't quite got to, we'll have to follow them up as best we can. 

But I'd say thanks, Matt and Phil, for your time today. 

And as Matt said, we'd really appreciate some feedback on today's event and other events that you might want to see in the future that we can put into practice. 

That would be great. So thanks, Matt, and we might finish it there. Thanks, Geoff. Thanks, everyone.