Lessons from the land

All right, everyone, thanks for being tuned in on time. Welcome to tonight's webinar.
Lessons from the land, the first of our series, the Sheep producer session. Tonight, we'll be hearing from three New South Wales sheep producers,
about their sheep operations, their experiences managing through drought, and some of the lessons they've learned along the way.
My name is Ella Barney, and I'm a drought adoption officer with the New South Wales Local Land Services. This webinar is brought to you by the Drought Adoption Officer Program,
which has received funding through the Australian Government's Future Drought Fund, through the Southern New South Wales Innovation Hub
and the Southern Queensland, Northern New South Wales Innovation Hub. So Local Land Services acknowledges that it stands on Country
that always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land and waters,
and we show our respect for Elders past, present and emerging. We are committed to providing places in which Aboriginal people are included
socially, culturally and economically through a thoughtful and collaborative approaches to our work.
So just a bit of housekeeping for tonight. This session is being recorded and it will be available later
on our YouTube channel to view. We encourage everyone to ask questions throughout the session. Use the Q&A function on the control panel of your screen
and just include which producer panellist you are directing your question toward, and we'll work through those at the end.
At the conclusion of tonight's webinar please fill out our post-event survey. We really do value your feedback, and this helps us to deliver the content
that you'd like to see in the future. So to introduce tonight's panellists.
First we will hear from Tom McGuiness. Tom, alongside his wife Georgie, operate McGuiness farms,
a self replacing commercial Merino enterprise on their properties. Clonalton at Frogmore, Bigga Station in Bigga and Booranga near Boorowa
The properties consist of a total area of around 5000 hectares and run approximately 30 to 40,000 head of sheep.
McGuiness farms also runs a thousand head of beef, cattle. And Tom will talk us through how he plans for dry seasons
and utilizes livestock data and trigger points to aid decision making. Then we will hear from Richard Taylor, who is the managing director of McLaughlin
River Pastoral Co, a family farming business based at Nimmitabel on the eastern Monaro.
The business runs a 25 to 30,000 head merino flock, 12 to 14,000 crossbred ewes and a 3000 cow breeding herd.
Richard is a veterinarian by training, the founder and director of Growth Farms, a farm management company operating approximately $1 billion worth of farmland in Eastern Australia.
Richard is also the current chairman of Farming Forecaster. And tonight Richard will be talking about his experiences managing through
droughts and discuss some of his drought management strategies with us. And thirdly, we will hear from Sam Evans, who is a fifth generation
farmer based at Walgett. Sam runs a mixed farm enterprise that includes a 3000 head self replacing
Dohne herd, 600 Angus cows and 10,000 hectares of cropping used to produce grain, fodder and for backgrounding.
Tonight, Sam will talk to us about the role of stored feed for drought preparedness and the way that livestock data informs his drought decision making.
So, Tom, to, welcome to tonight's webinar, and you're going to start us off so to, give us a bit more information about you.
Can you tell us a bit about your farms and provide an overview of the main drought management strategies that you've utilized on your properties during dry seasons?
Yes. Thank thanks, Ella, and thanks for having me. You know, I feel very lucky to be,
to be asked to do this, especially amongst the company of other producers we have on this panel. So,
yeah, very much, feel like I'm, lucky to be amongst this crowd, but,
look, to give you a little bit of background, we are all livestock grazing business, predominantly based on merino
ewes and some beef cattle.
We, predominantly a merino. So for replacing flock,
producing fine wool. And I guess that's our priority. And we do that because it fits our land class and,
and our general environment. We have used
a lot of different drought strategies over the years. And I think one of the things that came up when I had a bit of a chat to you
earlier, Ella is in the short term, I've been farming well,
it, probably spent nearly three decades now. I haven't seen two years the same.
And I think that's really important because it's difficult to have a drought strategy
that you just pull out of the, you know, the plan out and go with it. Because every year is different. You have to have,
I guess, a series of decisions that are made along the way that allow you to, put yourself in the best possible position
according to a lot of different things that are going on around you. And, that ability to make those decisions,
I think is the critical part. I always believe that decision making is the key to drought management.
And sometimes you've got to make multiple decisions a day, sometimes it's a week, sometimes it's a month.
But you just have to keep making good decisions.
Main drought strategies, I guess we look at, we weigh up, feeding, selling,
agisting, sometimes using all three, it's seems like we always seem to end up going down the path of pretty much always feeding.
We've just found that it's important to try and keep a core breeding
flock in place or herd and the economics of that, have sort of always added up,
I think the other thing that I was thinking about, our drought strategy is just investing in good infrastructure and,
and plant and equipment around feeding. So that's something that's, ongoing.
And we're not there yet, but we try to invest in, you know, good grain storage, augers, feed carts, those sorts of things.
So there's a little bit of a, I guess, introduction into, into some of the stuff we're doing.
Great. Thanks, Tom. So you were involved in the Tocal case study and, in that case study, you talked about
having clear drought plans in place with established trigger points, so that you can act early.
So can you walk us through those trigger points that help you decide when to start feeding, when things start to get dry?
Well we base our whole system Ella on, a lot of feed budgeting. So we're trying to assess how many kilos of dry matter
per hectare or across the farms on a whole farm basis all the time.
And I guess we know that it's because we're budgeting that we can measure how much is there
at the time, how much we're going to utilize, how much we might be going to grow in a certain amount of time.
We can always see where the deficits are going to take going to occur before they do.
So we we've got it on our radar as something that's probably going to happen.
That's when we start to think about, okay, well how do we manage that?
I think it's a combination of, you know, different processes.
So we're we're looking at measuring how many kilos are in the paddock across the farm at the time.
How long will it last, the condition of the animals, what condition scorethey're in of a
do they have surplus condition that we can run off them over a certain amount of time, or are they actually, probably a light,
you know, a lower condition score than what we would like them at the time. So we know that we don't have that luxury of running condition off animals.
The time of year is another critical thing like is it. And we talking we've had a failed spring and we just talking about a couple of
months coming out of the, you know, end of winter or the end of autumn, those types of things.
And then also we consider the, I guess, the general forecast and, the outlook for rain
because I know a lot of forecasting and bureau and stuff copped a lot of flak about there ability to forecast.
But there certainly are tools out there to give you a lot of information about what's happening.
And you can understand the risks a little bit better if you just take note of some of those, outlooks and forecasts that, that, that are out there.
Great. Thanks, Tom. And how do you use financial analysis to inform those decisions
that you're making, both before and during drought? So what are some of the key financial measures that you think producers should understand before
they're making those decisions around whether to feed, agist or sell?
Oh, well, I think
I think we could try and keep it pretty simple, and we don't get too, in depth because it's predicting the future is, is always difficult.
But we tend to just take a few simple things into account. We look at the value of the animal in its current state and
that gives us a sort of a benchmark of a starting point of, you know what it's worth to feed these animals.
From there we can we can look at the feed costs, of buying in. We buy in all our grain so we don't grow any feed ourselves at all.
It's all bought in I guess we look at the cost to keep the animal,
and that might a keeping it in full feed ration and maybe keeping it with a supplementary ration.
Or it may be the cost of agistment using someone else's grass to retain ownership of that animal.
And we I guess we look at the sale value at the animal at the time to see what it is.
Historically, we've always found that
in our area, we're often the last ones to go into these dry periods. So by the time we get there,
the at the value of the animals have dropped significantly. So selling is always going to be the difficult choice.
I think we then sort of put all that together and then make a decision.
And once we've made that decision, we'll say, okay, it's going to cost us so much per head or per DSE to feed
for a certain amount of time, which we believe is the time till the chance of the next break.
That might be two months, three months, six months. We then work out that cost.
I guess we then commit to that program and say, okay, we all happy with this is what we're going to do, let's do it.
But once that decision is made, it's just the process of doing it, implementing, filling, filling
silos, making sure we have grain on hand, getting the feed budget sorted,
understanding the nutritional requirements of the animals. So we meeting those targets and then measuring it.
So we're weighing animals. We're assessing them. Condition score just seeing if they're actually maintaining the condition
they're that we're aiming for or meeting targets along the way. And we don't overcomplicate it.
We keep it simple. But we do. We do feel once you've made a decision and committed to it, it's easy to implement.
It's sort of if you go in half-arsed and try, you know, not sure what you're going to do,
but you start off doing a bit and then it ramps up and then you're not in the you sort of committed to something you're not comfortable with.
It always gives you a headache. So we try and commit early. I think,
we do look at the projected animal value of the animal at the break. And that some mostly gives us a lot of confidence around feeding
because we can see that even the cost of this period that we've been through, which grass is very tough over autumn,
the value of those animals coming out of it is well outweighed, the cost of us doing it on a DSE basis.
I think the other thing that we use which is right
really simple for us is the New South Wales,
DPI app on drought feeding. Everyone has it on their phone, it's a simple process to work out,
you know, how many kilos certain animal classes are needing,
on a daily basis to maintain or, you know, meet a certain requirement. And we've found that a great tool to utilize when feeding,
you know, a lot of animals over three farms is that the drought and supplementary feed calculator, Tom.
Yes it is. Yeah, yeah. It's great. Yes. If anyone who doesn't know that it's available on the web and also you can download it as an app,
it's pretty handy tool to have this great tool. Yeah. So I'm talking about measuring animals and making those decisions.
You've mentioned that you use EIDs in your operation to collect data and to create an index for your ewes.
So how do you use this data to inform your decision making? When things do get dry and you deciding whether you're going to destock or not?
Look, okay. To put a, little,
add note to that statement in that we actually haven't
been able to do that for the last couple of years, just because we've probably focused more on our cost of production and,
and labour efficiencies and that's something that was one of the things that sort of dropped out of our system.
I think it's coming back in this year. We're collecting more data. This year we will go back into indexing all our ewes again.
But we had a system in place, which was great because we're running
our merino self replacing flock alongside a dual purpose flock.
So we're joining merino ewes to a terminal sire
and by indexing those ewes when we were, I guess questioning which ewes to feed.
We'll probably try to focus on our best genetics. If we're looking to sell anything
or to utilize that terminal, side of the flock to,
reduce our merino lamb numbers going forward, we would just utilize
that index to decide which you know, ewes we'd either sell or join to a terminal. And so it was a simple case.
All that's all the animals, all those ewes would, would have fibre diameter fleece weight
body weight record, just all the indexed internally. So every ewe of an age would be indexed from the best ewe number 1,
to what would be the lowest indexed ewe. You might be, you know, 3 or 4000.
And then we would just say, okay, let's just join the top.
2500 indexing ewes to a merino. The others would go, the next 2000 would go to a terminal,
the bottom ones would get sold, and we would literally run those through an autodraft
and it would all happen automatically once we set those parameters up. And we found that a great tool to understand,
not just diving in and going We need to unload some animals here. We're just going to go in and sell the oldest ones.
We probably try to be a bit more strategic around which animals we're keeping, which are our highest value animals,
and why we would choose to feed those for long periods. Sure.
Thank you. So talking about managing through those, long dry stretches when you were doing that, what helped you to keep turning up each day?
And were there any routines or habits that helped you stay motivated during those drought periods?
Look, that's that is such a hard question because there is no doubt that
when you're in the middle of it and you're driving around through dust and you're hot and you're constantly just feeding
animals day after day, it wears you down. And I think management of the people in the system is
I class it as more difficult than managing the animals. I I've always found that keeping people's
motivation up, keeping them interested in the job, keeping myself focused and interested is the number one challenge.
Because once you have a plan in place, the animal part's easy.
It is difficult. And look, I just think the way to do it is have a good plan,
keep it, you know, lighthearted don't get too stressed over it.
Just, you know, enjoy, have a bit of a laugh with people every time you see them and try and keep people motivated and upbeat.
Understand that it doesn't last forever. And I think when you're in the middle of it feels like it's never going to rain.
But we always know it does. And you've just got to remember that take.
I think one of the tools I've found great, and I would recommend this to anyone is
take photos, take photos of, when it's your best year, take photos of your worst
so you have reminders you can go back on on your phone or wherever
you may keep those photos and whenever you're driving around, the job feeding, you can just look back and look in that paddock and think, hang on,
it doesn't always look like this. Sometimes it looks fantastic. I think in the same way, sometimes you need those little reminders
when things are going really well too just say thing, hang on. And I gotta make the decisions now because this won't last forever
and I need to be prepared for when you know things do change.
And I've found that a great way of just keeping motivated and understanding that it's just cyclical, it changes.
So don't get too wound up in what the moment. Understand that you just, you know, there's a bigger picture involved.
Right. Thank you. And now you've talked about managing people and that potentially being a little more tricky than the animal side of things.
So what is your process for involving your team, your family, your advisors in the decision making during droughts?
And how do you make sure that those, decisions are collectively understood and executable within your team?
Yeah, I think information, you know, is, is the one thing that we try and focus on is, is we provide,
I guess we try and allow everyone to understand the plan and have a bit of input in the plan.
So we'll we'll speak constantly talking about, the targets that certain animal,
groups have as far as their condition or weight gain or maybe weight loss or, you know,
whatever it may be, we try and, really inform everyone in the, in the, business still.
So what we're trying to do and, why we're trying to do it, and then
I think, that allows them to make better decisions on the, on the ground as to,
you know, what they're doing and what and how they might change it. And I guess, come back to us with, with ideas
or with, you know, commentary about what's happening. Again,
I think it's really great to, have some sort of platform,
which is we use, WhatsApp, which is just, you know, standard,
for an app of sharing a lot of information. So within the group, we can share,
you know, photos of what's happened, you know, kilos of dry matter on the ground, you know, might be a bit of a stuff up.
You've had, you know, share it around. It gives people a bit of a laugh, I think. I think, yeah.
Information flow is the main one, and we don't tend to use a lot of,
advisors or anything in our business. I think we understand the key principles, and we certainly I certainly have
a really strong, I guess, core group of, mentors around me.
And I rely on them heavily, always giving them a call, just, you know, sharing information with them, what I'm doing, what they're doing.
And I find that the best way to clear your head around, I guess bottlenecks in, you know, in your business
or your strategies, just sharing what's going on with you. And more often than not, people are going through the same thing.
And that's one thing I've learned is that the best farmers are also the best sharers of information like that.
They never hold anything back. They're happy to give you all the information you ever want if you're willing to ask.
And I think that's, you know, another way of, understanding where you are at the moment is making sure that you're talking to, you know,
mentors, peers, whatever it is around you so that, you know, you feel like you're, in a good headspace
because once you share that moment, I think it relieves it.
And, you know, everyone else, you know, soon. Understand I'm not the only one doing this.
It's it's, you know, everyone else is in the same boat, so. Thanks, Tom. I think that's our way of managing that.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Tom. That's, all the questions I've got for you tonight.
So thank you for sharing the role of that communication and shared experiences with your mentors.
It's, really great to hear. So if anyone does have questions, they'd like to address to Tom,
you can just pop them in the Q&A function and we will, come back to them at the end. So next we're going to have a chat to Richard.
Richard Taylor. So Richard, to get us started, can you give us a bit of an overview
about your property and, walk us through some of the key strategies that you've used during drought periods to keep things running.
Okay. Thanks, Ella. And I echo Tom's sentiments of really, I feel very privileged to be part of the discussion here tonight.
Droughts? I've been farming longer than these other guys, I think. But, And drought is you know,
pretty close to the heart of any of any farmer. And, the,
is a very emotional and important topic. And I have my observation over my.
A very defining time for farm businesses. So getting them right is really important to the long term success of a business.
So but we, we based on the Monaro, on the eastern Monaro,
for those of you in the north of the state, it's probably the closest thing to it is the Eastern side of the New England.
So we, we get some rain, coastal rain. Really. So a bit like Tom said, we're
on the eastern side of the state and we tend to be the last into a drought and a last out.
And it's got the reputation of being a pretty tough place, mainly because it's quite high. So over 1000m above sea level.
But one of the good things about it is we close to much softer places. So we've while 80% of our country is on the Monaro, we've got some country down
in the Bega Valley, which is only 30 K's to our east. And we've got country up and over in the upper Murray,
just on the western side of the divide. But all the properties are within sort of 350km.
So one of our drought strategies is actually to be able to move stock around,
to bid on based on the Monaro. And that's where
the majority of our sheep, and the majority of the business, cattle.
I think are relevant idea, even though we're not talking about cattle tonight, but we do move the cattle around and we do have adjustment options
with them, whereas our, our sheep flock are closed flocks. And just because of disease risk issues, we're not prepared to,
to agist them. So it's a bit limiting. But but given cattle are 40% of our DSE is we can
shuffle them around a bit and move them between properties. And given that we are last in and last out of drought.
But we're also reasonably high rainfall. So across the property we'd average about 800 mil of rainfall.
I think like Tom, when we do the sums, it always pays us to keep the great majority of our stock.
We can't we can't sell them in front of everybody else. The drought tend to come across from the west.
So by the time we know we're in drought, stock prices have already collapsed.
Generally. I mean, we tend to come out of them later, too. And so by the time we can buy back in,
prices tend to have escalated pretty well. So, you know, we do the numbers, but invariably
the approach is to, to maintain at least all our breeding flock and herd and in, in, in reality,
we we need to be operating with at least 80% of our
sort of long term stock numbers. If we get below that, we're just not profitable.
So, so we really focus on keeping our stock, and I get to do that, we pick things up.
And a lot of the way we set the business up is actually to manage drought resilience as I said. I think it's just so important.
So we set up to finish everything. So to take our lambs up to 55 kilos.
So that gives us flexibility in a drought that we can bail out of them early. So one of the first things we do is sort of bail out earlier
in that production cycle, so that obviously we take a hit on that in the year we do it, but it doesn't affect next year's production.
Okay. Thanks, Richard. Yeah. So running a large number of sheep that you do,
can you share a time where a particular feeding strategy or a management decision made a real difference to the efficiency and the time spent completing those day
to day tasks that you have to do? Every day during a drought. Well, I think it should have probably been incremental changes.
Tony mentioned infrastructure, and that's been a big one. And in the place we're on here, we've got six different silo
sites with augers and so on, just to minimize the time taken to feed,
because a lot of it's just about manageability. The other thing that, we do now is just pretty well
everything on the property property has been trained to eat grain like Tom grain is our feed supply in a drought.
We don't produce any. We would bring it all in. But if you go into a drought here and your animals are not trained to grain
hen you just get a massive job to get them onto it. Then we tend to imprint feed our lambs before we wean.
And you know, if 80% of the stock on the property are not trained to eat grain, then I reckon I'm in trouble.
Okay, great. Thank you. So are there any particular tools or systems that you use during a drought to aid decision making?
And how do you balance the use of these tools with your own instinct and experience from being in the game as long as you have.
So, you know, are there tools, such as farming forecaster that you've used, other long range forecasts, what do you tend to utilize?
Well, I've got to declare a bit of a conflict of interest here, Ella, that I'm sort of chairing Farming Forecaster at the moment,
but that's actually the tool I use most. As Tom mentioned about the seasonal forecasts and they are getting better.
But the real value of farming forecaster is it puts the known things in there.
And so the known things how much soil moisture you've got now, what your pasture availability is, your stock condition.
And they actually have a really big impact on what you, food supply is going to look for the next 3 or 4 months.
So having them in your projections sort of going for what I find really useful.
So that's something I'd look at, you know, at least every week when I'm in it and when the season's getting difficult.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So when we're talking about managing, sheep through drought, it definitely involves some tough calls.
Can you tell us about one of the hardest decisions you've had to make during drought?
Well, I saw that question you gave to me Ella and I'm not sure I can because I'm, I'm not very good at making heroic decisions.
I tend to make really incremental decisions, because sort of the situation's
changing, you know, on a weekly basis, really. And I think when we really are going into a drought that we,
we're making a bit of a new plan or we revising the plan every week.
So, I mean, it's always it's always hard and it's much harder when you're in a drought than it is looking back at it.
Because when you're looking back at it, you know what the end point was, you know? And the hardest thing about being in a drought is not knowing when it's going to end.
And obviously that if you knew when it was going to end, that would make your decisions a lot easier.
But I think whenever you're making a big call in terms of either you know, getting out of stock early,
so we, you know, in that 19/20 summer, we sold a lot of crossbred lambs at under 25 kilos.
But, you know, they were still worth 100 bucks or so at the time. But, you know, you're actually taking a big hit. But,
doing it to preserve the rest of your breeding flock or herd. So I think all those decisions are hard.
I think, you know, bringing, bringing animals into confinement, feeding,
you know, is always hard. It's a big commitment. But, you know, it's it's what we do as things get tougher.
Yeah, absolutely. So when it does come to making those tough calls like destocking or holding off
on investing or putting those animals into confinement feeding, who do you normally lean on for advice and support?
And do you have any advisors, family or peers? Mentors like Tom mentioned that you trust in those moments?
Yeah, I guess, you know, I sort of developed a real peer group. Also generally,
we have a pretty strong Monaro farming group and a benchmarking group,
and I guess they're, they're a farming peer group. I've also got a,
a very close friend who's got a business that's very similar size to me. And, you know, we'd talk at least weekly in those situations.
I think just sharing information, as Tom said, is, is really helpful. But having said all that, you know, I think you
you've got to be prepared to do things differently, too. You know, my view about Ag is the average returns generated in Ag are pretty low.
And if you're not prepared to do things differently, then then, you know, you're never going to shoot the lights out.
So I think it's great to talk to other people and so on. But I think
you also got to be prepared to do things your own way. Yeah. Okay.
Thank you. So when we're talking about managing through a drought, it, does take a big toll on anyone who's going through that.
And so what have you learned about looking after your own headspace during those times? And is there anything that you do differently next time around?
Well I, I think procrastination is a real killer.
So, you know, I said we make incremental decisions. So you just constantly making decisions and not putting them off.
And I always feel better when I've made them. Whereas if you're procrastinating it, it, can be quite crippling.
So, yeah, get on with it, make decisions. But think having realistic expectations is important.
I mean, I'm not a perfectionist, but I reckon if you were a perfectionist, droughts would be really difficult because,
you know, things tend to get pretty untidy in a drought. And I think you're just got to be realistic about that
fact in my early farming days. An old farmer next door, I think probably the first drought
I went into and you said you're just going to think of drought like a war. He said there'll be a few casualties, but most people will get most.
You know, we'll get through it. And I think so you just got to be realistic. I think, you know, some things will go wrong,
but keep your eye on the main game and and just keep working through it.
Yeah, absolutely. So has managing your properties through droughts influenced
how you prepare for the next one? So in what ways has it made you more cautious or hesitant and in what ways?
In areas have you focused on building resilience?
Well, as I said, I think, you know, drought management has been a real focus in how we set the whole business up.
So, you know, having the infrastructure in place, good water systems, good feeding systems,
decent tracks around the place to make things efficient, also I think,
you know, having knowing you've got the finance in place, I think the worst time to go to the bank is when you're in the middle of a drought and things are tough, but
so, you know, we always have a bit of headspace there in our financial capacity.
And, and especially I my borrowings, we don't have the capital on hand but and we pay a bit of a line fee to have that.
But I know that we've got a bit of a margin there to get us through a drought.
And that just, makes decision making a lot easier. I think,
yeah. And I think in terms of resilience pastures, you know, our pasture, sowing decisions are based on pastures that will survive drought.
So I think really in a lot of ways it flows right through it all our, all our property
planning and infrastructure decisions. Okay. Great.
Thanks, Richard. So that's all the questions that I had for you tonight. So thank you for your insights and your advice.
So once again, if anyone has any questions that they'd like to direct towards Richard, please pop them in that Q&A function and we will come back to them.
So lastly, we are going to hear from Sam Evans. So, Sam, thanks for coming along tonight.
So to give us a little bit more information about you, can you give us, a bit of information about your properties, Martindale
and Netherby, and give us some insight into the farming operation that yourself and your family run?
This? Thank you. So thanks for having me. Yeah.
Very privilege to, Yeah. Amongst, some other very talented farmers by the sounds of it.
So thank you. Just a quick insight. Yeah. Based up at Walgett.
Seems to be very good season at the moment, but doesn't last forever.
But no we we run a 3000 head journey, so for placing herd, 600 Angus cows,
between sort of here and another property at Tambar Springs.
And, yeah, 10,000 hectares of cropping that we use for mostly grain production, but we also do a bit of backgrounding,
and a bit of our own fodder crop from time to time.
Great. Thank you. So I know that you've got a bit of a feedlot set up on your place, so can you tell us a little bit about that feedlot
and the reasons that you chose to invest in feedlot infrastructure and how it fits into your drought management plan?
Yeah. No worries. That it was. Yeah. So obviously during the drought, there was many, many challenges along the way.
And lessons to be learned and yeah, we just sort of looked into it, did the sums on it.
And, you know, we tried all the other avenues agistment, and paddock feeding and everything else and just sort of
with the time management was probably the biggest thing. Having them contained.
And you can see everything and monitor everything a little closer. So we. Yeah, set up the feedlot.
And. Yeah, it was. Yeah. It's been a good thing for us what we've done so far.
And we still today use it. We will use it for weaning lambs as well, off mum.
Yeah, if conditions aren't right, we can also utilize that as well.
Yeah. That's great. So when things do get dry, what are the indicators that you're monitoring to decide when you're going to start supplementary feeding?
Definitely the ground cover. That's our biggest thing. As a lesson, probably coming out of the back of.
Yeah, sort of 2017 to 2020. Yeah, sort of.
We went and did a few courses during that period, grazing for profit and a few.
And yeah, ground cover definitely is our number one. That's. Yeah. One of my biggest things I'd like to retain, in order
to try and avoid to say the place what it looked like last time. And then obviously livestock condition,
you can still have ground cover, but, the quality of food just isn't there. So that's one of our main indicators too
and then obviously timing, you know, whether we're coming up to joining lambing, whatever we'll be condition scoring, our ewes
and yeah, making the assessment on that and having a plan and going from there.
Great. So, Sam, when you're talking about, the, dry matter out in the paddocks, do you have particular numbers
that you work off or any particular tools that you use, to make that call, or do you just sort of know your place and make your decisions based off that,
bit of both Yeah, I, I did start to use some tools.
Some apps and some other things, which they, they were good at the time and definitely with, with doing it.
But yeah, I learned a few things along the way. I probably weren't as accurate as what I would have liked.
But yeah, that still can't beat driving around and yeah, knowing your place for yourself and you know, what's there and,
and the quality of it, you can't beat that as well as a, as a, as a backup. Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
So one thing that we've chatted about is the fact that you utilize, eIDs across your whole flock.
So can you tell us about the experiences that led to that decision?
Yep. And after the. Well, on the back of what we started in 2019, started rolling out
the eIDs, had another farmer, a mate that, had started with a bloke from,
Anthony Shepherd with 'Sheep Matters'. And yeah, we sort of got involved with that.
And basically what I wanted to get out of it was if we got dry again, I wanted to know that we were feeding out most productive animals.
So. And, you know, they're only as good as what you put into it. So we've been collecting data since then, across all the herds.
So we're now eID across the whole flock,
which has been really good. So if any, wet and dry fleece weighing
and, you know, it's given us the results and our lambing rate has gone from 96% up to so 142%.
And we're actually at the moment running less ewes than what we ever had and still getting more lambs.
So which is been really good. And then obviously the ram selection has been the other big one for us.
Quite always trying to pick, multiples. I don't know whether it's, it's, the right thing or the wrong thing.
But we always try and select multiple born rams and yeah, so far we're getting pretty good results out of it.
Yeah. Great. So you've mentioned some of the the type of data that you collect on your sheep.
But how does that data influence the decisions around destocking. So are you destocking those less productive animals.
And how are you ranking those animals to determine who stays and who goes?
Yeah, definitely. It's, Yeah, definitely. We can put an index in, wherever we want
so we can keep all our most productive, you know? Best fleece weighing, scanned twins, reared twins.
You know, for them, having three, four years, Yeah.
So that that's definitely the biggest thing for us. Yep. Great. Thank you.
So, you've. Sorry. We're going to just look at the video that you've given me,
just to mix it up for everyone a little bit. So while this video plays, can you just tell us a little bit about what we're looking at here?
Yep. So these are two of the, the grind pits. So we very, there'd be 400 tonne of either
barley or oats in those pits. They're about, you know, what, about ten
by six by 50m long. And that's basically as deep as that excavator will dig it.
We line those pits with tarps. I'll tarp out the side and then fill it with grain,
and once the grain is in there, fill it above ground level, fold the tarps back over and basically chuck dirt on it. And.
Yeah, as soon as we need that, it's at the ready and it's not tying up a silo sort of in the mix with our grain production.
And it has been a has been a good thing so far. Yeah. So, during previous droughts, you fed out barley and oats
that have been stored at the time since 2010, or 2011. So can you tell us a little bit about this experience of feeding out that buried feed and whether burying grain
is still part of your drought preparedness strategy? Yeah, I definitely is. We're actually yeah, we actually only buried some more last year.
And we're currently just restocked our hay shed as of today, actually.
But no yeah. We will always have basically 12 months feed on hand, at all times because, you know,
we're 450 mil of rainfall, so we know it's kind of it's going to get dry.
It's, Yeah. So we're always, always ready.
And what you say, like the others have said, you've just got to be adaptable. Things never, never two years the same, and that's what we try to aim for.
Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. So looking back at some of those major droughts that you have managed through,
is there a particular moment or a decision that stands out as a turning point for you?
Either practically on your properties or personally?
20, 27 months straight of feeding was a straight feeding was a pretty big one.
Yeah. The, Tom did mention it before.
Like, you've got to have photos for sure. Of the good times and remember what it is like.
But, you know, you go from the dust storms like the 1 in 1 of those photos there, and that was like nothing from memory.
About 2:00 in the afternoon and ended up inside. And it was it was just pitch black at 2:00 in the afternoon and.
Yeah, sort of think. Yeah, there's got to be something better than this. But, you know, then you, you realize that it's only for a short time
and you've just got to manage it and adapt as you go. Yeah, absolutely.
So based on your experience, what advice would you give to other producers about balancing those practical demands of managing the farm through drought?
Whilst also looking after their themselves and their mental wellbeing?
Definitely. Yeah. We we have a drought plan now. That's the biggest thing.
If you've got if you've got something set before, it actually happens, you know, types your luck.
Yeah. You're a lot it's a lot easier to make better decisions before before you're in the thick of it.
So. Yeah, like the, the triggers, you know, to destocok, or agist, or to sell the less productive ones.
Yeah. If you've always got that plan ready to go and you can adapt in whichever way
you need to go, it's always, always good. And I think probably one of the other things
we learned from the drought, too, was to even get off farm. You know, I didn't have to go.
Obviously you're not going on many holidays when you're drought feeding, but, you know, even if it was catching up with a neighbor for for a coffee or,
you know, lunch at a pub or something like that, it's just all those little things that add up to help you get through it.
And probably another one I would say was probably finding, some new hobbies I think was another good one.
You know, just make little projects or, you know, set goals and yeah, next, next thing you know, you know,
there's a forecast on the way and hopefully it's a decent one. Yeah. Great. Thank you.
So speaking about, you know, looking forward to when that, forecast does change.
How is it that you maintain focus on your long term goals, such as genetic improvement in your flock or your long term productivity
whilst you're, you know, managing through the thick of survival mode, during a drought.
Well, I think we're probably already, probably already having the eID set up. Already rolling out before the drought.
Actually, it's I think now is the biggest thing for us because we're already our main focus is on that productivity already.
So, you know, you know, you've got a plan in place that, you know, stays dry for so long.
You know, we can still sell these bottom performers, you know, in order to feed those, you can. Yeah.
And enjoying the top half the performers like, give your options, that you wouldn't have had,
if we hadn't have acquired all that data along the way. And then.
Yeah, I think that was about it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, last one for you.
What is a lesson that the drought has taught you? Or a drought has taught you that you now apply every day in your farm management,
even when you're experiencing a good season?
Now, definitely the photos is probably the biggest thing for me. I would agree with Tom on that one.
It's you've got to see the best of both. And it's a reminder when it's good. And a reminder when it's what it can be like at the other end.
And yeah, just to find that happy medium, and. Yeah, as well as, you know, it's a work life balance as well, finding that,
you know, I so I had kids during the drought as well. So that was, they're pretty good time waster and a good distraction as well.
Yeah. That's great. Thank you. And like Tom and Richard mentioned, they both mentioned having mentors.
Is that something that you also had during the drought and something that you, you know, someone you bounced ideas off or ask questions of during those times?
Yeah, definitely. There's a lot we're probably pretty fortunate. There's a really good, crowd of plenty of Young farmers in this area.
Sort of like the next generation coming through, you know, with a lot of new ideas,
fresh ideas and, and as well as using, using the ones that previous to us as well, which you can always.
Yeah, you always need that. But not that definitely. There's a lot. Yeah. Great. Thank you.
All right. So that's, all the questions I've got for you, Sam, tonight. So thank you for, sharing your experiences and your thoughts
and your advice and that's much appreciated. So we're now going to move on to the question section for tonight.
So we have had a few questions come through the Q&A. So the first one is directed towards Tom.
So Tom, if you want to come off yeah. Mute for me. So, Geoff has asked.
Hi, Tom, how often do you meet as a management team and review what you've mentioned as your plan or the plan?
Oh, we're not very good. We're not very good at having structure around that. I've got to say, I'd like to think that would be better at that, but,
it tends to be fairly loose. This is around timing, but I think,
so we don't have a structured like, you know, Monday morning toolbox meeting or something like that.
We, we tend in more, catch up when we can with our team.
So I'll often get around the different firms and we'll be, you know, seeing everyone on the ground, making sure everything's going alright or I'll be,
they're trying to, you know, fill in while, you know, other jobs are going on or something.
So unfortunately, I, I feel a bit, guilty to say we don't have much structure around that.
Probably something we need to improve on. But I think the sharing of constant information is really important.
And but by that, and I can be a simple, message on a in our WhatsApp group or something
that can share an idea or a problem, suddenly we can all come together and,
you know, work out what the problem is and how to fix it quite quickly. And, you know, I think that's the great thing
about technology that we we, you know, we often complain now about how much we, we have to be available.
And it also means that, you know, sharing of information is, is so easy. And, you know, you can pick up your phone at any moment and, you know, quickly
read a message, look at it, stop and get back to that person. You know,
add value, I think. So that's probably more the way we strategize around that.
I think the big strategy stuff we probably catch up, I would say
once every 2 to 3 weeks and just have, you know, a quick discussion around,
maybe longer than that, maybe 4 to 6 weeks, actually, the more I think about it, time gets away.
But, you know, I wait, we'll get together and just have a bit of a chat about, you know, how's it going?
Are we meeting the targets are we where we thought we'd be, you know, how do we all feel this is going?
Yeah. For sure. Thank you. Tom. So the next one's directed towards Richard. So Kate asked.
Hi, Richard. You said that you choose passages that survive drought. What are those particular species?
And how do you try to maintain, good ground cover during a dry season?
Well, Phalaris is really sort of the mainstay. We have lucerne pastures too, but in terms of our long
term pastures, we, we're using Phalaris. And typically you should have whole fast in Australian
but using whole fast JT now and it it's pretty indestructible up here.
In terms the second part ground cover. Yeah. Again, that's critical for us.
And so we're moving to confinement feeding as, as ground cover starts to get down towards critical levels.
Yeah. And it's one of the big changes since I've been in ag. And when I started in ag no one use confinement feeding.
Now the great majority of farmers I know I do and it's been a really positive thing for Ag.
Yeah great. Thanks Richard for that one. So our next one,
I think this one was directed towards Sam as it came in during your, chat.
So, Jaimi-lee says it's great to hear that the ideas are being utilized for farm management decisions.
What is your program of choice for analyzing that data and making decisions based on the data?
We use AgriWebb at the moment. Probably not as good as what we should.
It's hard finding one, to across all enterprises,
especially like cropping and cropping and livestock ones are the two. We basically need two separate ones, which we do have sometimes.
But yeah, I AgriWebb at the moment is our main one that we use on that front.
Thank Sam. The next one's actually directed towards you as well, so you can stay with me. So Kate's asked, how many tonnes
will fill one of those pits that we saw in the video? And roughly how much time does it take to get through feeding out a pit of that size?
When you're feeding it out in a confinement feeding setup. Right there,
they're are about 400 tonnes, 450 tonnes each, those pits. And normally once we open them, we'll pull the whole lot out and put it in a silo.
Only because sometimes, you get a bit of dirt fall back into the pit.
So therefore, you've got to either grade some of it or use a strainer of some description just to hold the clods of dirt.
Right. Thank Sam. The next one was actually directed towards everyone. So I might just go through everyone individually.
So if Sam, you're happy to start. So Brian's asked if, you benchmark your farms alongside any other farms
in the area or with similar properties across New South Wales, looking at things like dry sheep equivalent, soil type moisture,
pasture, yields, rainfall, etc..
Yeah. Yeah, certainly have. Only last year finished a course benchmarking with a group
with seven other farmers. Similar similar sort of similar size farms, all mixed enterprise.
And yeah, it was a very interesting process and yeah, certainly got a lot out of it and some, some great ideas.
Bounced around back and forth. Great. Thanks.
So we might go to Tom next if you want to answer that one. So just to, say it again.
So do you benchmark your farms alongside any other farms in your area or similar farms across New South Wales,
looking at things like soil type, pasture, yields, etc.? Yes we do.
We benchmark our farms and our business and I personally believe
it is the most important part of our business.
That whole process, understanding what the key drivers of profitability are in your business,
and then achieving, results
by understanding what those drivers are, is absolutely critical.
And so by being able to compare ourselves to other businesses and,
you know, a broad range of businesses in our area is critical. And we have a really strong, benchmarking group,
that I'm a part of, as well as, you know, I've put in our data
from our farm into a benchmarking group for a fair while now. And I just think it's so important.
I can't believe that it isn't something that isn't top of the list of, every farming business, in my opinion.
Great. Thank you. Tom. So, Richard, if you're happy to, give your thoughts on the same question.
Yeah. Well, I, I shared Tom's sentiments. We probably we don't do it every farm every year, but we sort of move in and out of it a bit.
But we've got quite a strong benchmarking group on the Monaro. Which part of
that was I'm second that Sandy McEachran runs it now, but there's about ten farms at benchmark there.
And and you know you learn more from the tough years and your stuff ups than you do from when things get well you know and
so I think you really learned some great lessons from those benchmarking groups and a lot of it's financial.
But there's also you production benchmarks, you know, what you're producing per hectare and and so on. So we've got pretty good ballpark figures on the Monaro
now really I think for what we should what we're able to produce. Yeah.
Great. Thank you. And Richard, while I've got you the last one is, asking about
how you might have designed your annual sheep program to align with the seasonal feed supply course.
So have you, you know, timed lambing or joining to align with certain times of the year? And are there any challenges with that?
Yeah. Look it's easy for us, our country on the Monaro is all over 1000m
the one season, we have certainly over is winter where we will grow nothing for 100 days.
So, we don't calve or lamb before September. Okay. Yeah. Great.
So we're spring lambers, spring calvers. Yeah. Great. Thanks, Richard. All right, so, that brings us to the conclusion of,
the Q&A section for tonight. So thank you to all our producers for, answering those questions
as they've come through. So we, before we conclude tonight's webinar,
the QR code that's up on the screen, will take you to a feedback form. So we do really appreciate, you guys filling this out as it helps us to plan
any new events or webinars, and it helps us to deliver the content that you'd like to see in the future. So if you have time to do that quick feedback form, we'd really appreciate it.
I'd also like to remind everyone that this webinar is part of a series. It's a four part series, and the next one will be running at the same time
next week on Tuesday the 28th. So this session will be focused on cattle. So if you've maybe got some cattle at home as well, this one could be good for you too.
So if you'd like to register that QR code on the bottom right hand side of the screen, will take you to the registration page for that one.
And my colleague Kate has also popped the, link for that feedback form in the chat.
So if you're not a fan of QR codes, you can just click on that one and it will take you through on your web as well.
So thanks to everyone for joining tonight. And, I'll end the recording now.

Good evening everyone. My name is Brett Littler. I'm with the, Local Land Services.
I'm a Drought Adoption Officer. And will be the host for this evening.
Running through the questions and the like. Obviously, none of these things can happen without.
So funding, partner and the like and and the funds to run these programs.
This Lessons from the Land webinar series is brought to you by the Drought Adoption Officer Program.
Which has received funding from the Australian Government Future Fund through the Southern New South Wales Innovation Hub
and the SQNNSW Innovation Hub. So we'll be running through this evening.
We've got, our panellists here and we'll talk to them shortly.
But firstly, I'd just like to acknowledge that Local Land Services acknowledges that it stands on the Country,
which always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters,
and we show our respect for Elders past, present and emerging. We're committed to providing a place in which Aboriginal people are included
socially, culturally and economically through thoughtful and collaborative approach to our work.
Thank you. So just a bit of housekeeping. Obviously it's best
if you joined by a desktop computer for the best viewing experience. Also, just so that you know that this session is being recorded
and will be available on our YouTube channel, at the conclusion and once we we go through and make sure that, I haven't
sworn or done anything that I shouldn't have done during the presentation. Also, what I would like and particularly it's one of these ones,
is if you have a question, please use the Q&A function. It is our sort of wish that at the end
we'll all run through and have questions. The chance to question both of our presenters this evening.
The other thing that, if I could ask is, at the end, please fill out the the post event survey.
It's one of those things that it does help us, with our work. And, and yeah, it sort of can show value and,
but also helps us to, to look at ways we do do our job a little bit better.
Obviously this evening we've got a number of different producers online.
That we've got to have here, first off the bat will be Felicity Wills.
Of now, Felicity now for a little while, and their family. But, look, Felicity is a veterinarian and a technical advisor
with Coopers Animal Health, based near Orange in New South Wales. And she was raised on the family beef enterprise near Blayney
and remains closely involved with the cattle industry. After graduating from Charles Sturt
University, Felicity worked as a large animal vet in Ballarat trained in livestock medicine and parasitology in Canada
and later joined Local Land Services in Broken Hill before moving to Coopers. She's also just to keep herself a bit busy.
As, help manage her family 3000 hectare Angus breeding operation and focus on producing high quality, performing feedlot cattle and the like.
So that that's Felicity and We'll go to her shortly. Unfortunately, this evening, due to a personal situation,
Matt Avendano was going to be involved, but, and unfortunately, due to the,
unforeseen circumstances, won't be able to to make it on board this evening. And Matt was based
up at Boggabri in northern New South Wales, but also with us this evening is, Kate Smart.
Now Kate and her husband, Matt, run a 650 hectare mixed farm,
"Nangus", west of Gundagai. And after 2018, 2019 drought,
they invested in, confinement, feeding water and infrastructure. They expanded into cattle trading and finishing, with with backgrounding.
So Kate's got a background in mechanical engineering, business management, ruminant nutrition.
Kate applies a strong analytical focus to feed efficiency, animal performance and efficiency outcomes.
And it's been quite interesting having a yarn to Kate, over the phone over the last few weeks.
So, thanks very much for that as well. Okay. So to kick things off this evening, I'd really,
we'll, we'll kick off with, Felicity. And I know fully well that Felicity is
is it's a family business. And I know it reasonably well.
But, Felicity, I was wondering if you can give us an overview of your properties, the operation that you run, and the main strategies that your family
have used to improve to manage through drought and drought conditions.
Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me, Brett. And thanks everyone for jumping on. I suppose, I will disclose at the start, while I obviously
am involved in the family business, I'm not the main decision maker. So I probably look at this from a little bit of an outside, perspective.
But and certainly happy to share my experience and probably some of that from, from professional life as well, working with a lot of people,
and producers going through this. So I suppose background for us, we were dairy farmers
that moved inland to where we are today near Blayney in New South Wales.
We manage about 3000 hectares of, of grazing land. And we run between 12 and 1300 head of breeding Angus, females across that.
So we do actually have two different blocks. They're reasonably close together but very different just
in terms of pasture improvement and, and how they run for us, overall, across that 3000 hectares, we've got about 60%
improved pastures or upgraded from, native pastures. So still native base with aerial seeding of phalaris and clover.
So that has been a real focus for us on, pasture improvement
and pasture quality in general based on soil testing and, and regular, use of agros and, and expert advice
in that field in terms of drought strategies. And I'm not sure if this comes from dad's dairy background, but,
we've always had a really strong focus on fodder conservation. So in particular a really strong focus on pitted silage
for long term fodder conservation. Wrapped silage for short term use or regular use.
And then also a focus on hay production and storage. So, a lot of what we've done in improving how we manage
dry periods is around and getting better at conserving good quality fodder, and then how we utilize and feed that out during dry, dry periods.
And then I suppose more recently with a little bit more of a focus on infrastructure upgrades. So,
putting in dedicated feeding pens that can be used for drought feeding, but also double as effective weaning management for us year on year.
So looking at trying to get that the most out of those that infrastructure we've put in and then I think a big one for us,
that is probably improved and changed as we've learned things and, and I mean, we've really only been in the district for,
you know, 50 odd years, a little less than that, actually. So and learning how to manage this country in terms of managing stocking rate,
maintaining feed reserves and ground cover during dry periods, to probably improve our recovery
out of out of those dry periods. Just briefly, on that fodder conservation and I,
your dad always worries me when he turns up to a field. And I'm starting to talk about it because when I've got someone with an A grade.
I know sort of some of the discussion that quality is when particularly I know dealing with that in the past.
So one of the key things that your dad really does concentrate on making sure that it's good quality Felicity would you comment.
100%. So I think and that comes down to, to a lot of things, is the fodder base that we use for silage.
So we kind of run two different programs in that we do a lot of, pasture based silage.
So, just cutting the improved pastures. But we do often grow summer crops.
So so in Sudan, grass, is, is a general one for us that really we've found and consistently
year on year provides a really good quality silage, which when we go to use on feed tests kind of is that right balance
of, of energy and protein for feeding cattle. So, that comes down
to obviously growing the right base to conserve, getting that information and expertise on the best ways to,
to conserve and store, and then also really regularly using feed tests, both pre production and then once we're using it to have a
really firm handle on the quality of feed that we're giving out. So that we can manage that in terms of quantity
and allocation to different stock types. And the use of our feed, or using that feed as effectively as possible
is so when you're thinking about managing cattle through during a drought or dry period, what what are some of the aims
that you have in trying to balance that up with the priorities, including, you know, your pasture conservation, maintaining that core breeding herd.
I know we joked about that before we came online. In that breeding stock and also maintaining the cash flow.
How's that to work in the family business? Yeah, I think it's it's probably a pretty fine balancing act.
And I wouldn't say you always get it 100% right, but I think for us, the focus has really shifted to and how we manage the property
and probably a stronger focus on that. Soil conservation pasture conservation and ground cover.
Probably that's something I think that we've got a lot better at doing and placed a much higher priority on.
So making decisions earlier, to pull cattle out of paddocks,
put them into and we do run sacrifice paddocks so high stocking density, bigger mobs for feeding and and probably doing that
earlier than we would have done previously has been a big one for us. And yes, I was, joking with you earlier.
Brett. I say these cavalier cavalierly because I haven't spent my life doing it, but I suppose we have had to find that balance of obviously wanting to,
to keep our code breeding stock, but, not letting that blind you to the need to reduce load, to better effectively
manage stock condition and also, pasture and soil coverage. So probably there has been a greater
discussion as a family around, you know, making those decisions earlier, probably trying to be a little less, emotionally invested in,
seeing all of our cattle as core breeding herd and, and making better selection around what goes
and when that goes on farm during those, those dry periods is probably and I say that often sitting on the outside as the annoying
advising daughter, in that I'm not on farm day in, day out. And maybe in some respects that does help to, to push those decisions along
because I often can be slightly, a little, bit more dispassionate about, that emotional connection to some of those things. Yes.
So when conditions start to deteriorate, what are some of some of the real trigger points
that you've got to decide to reduce stock to bring them in and feed them? What what are some of those ones that. Yeah.
What are those trigger points that you really look at from on the farm. Yeah. I suppose for our one, it's
feed on offer, coverage and pasture availability is the big one. So having a really good handle on that.
And I suppose running two different properties with only two full time staff, that's probably a big challenge for us.
Just making sure that we're routinely really staying on top of where we're sitting in terms of pasture availability and, and ground cover.
So that's probably, a quite a big focus for us and something that we do actually have to put a focus on,
just given the lack of, of labor and making sure we're keeping eyes on things, as much as possible.
So that's probably the big driver. And then obviously looking at at stock condition is the other one.
So often making that call earlier before we start getting that, that drop in condition of cattle because we obviously know it's easier
to keep condition on than trying to rebuild condition if we let them slip, too far Brett.
So really a focus on being on top of where we are in terms of pasture and ground cover and, and trying to make those decisions early.
So we're not playing catch up with our feeding in that respect is probably a big focus there.
Do you use any decision support tools, or is it mainly your own experience that sort of help you act before you get into a situation?
I would say a big a driver is is experience like for us Dad is still a huge influence on those decisions.
And, and he has, you know, a wealth of experience. But we're certainly not shy in reaching out.
You know, as you've said from the start, we've worked with you for a long time, Brett. We will certainly reach out, and seek expert advice, because obviously,
and having those outside eyes can be so important. In, in kind of guiding some of those decisions,
you know, you're looking at your paddocks every day and sometimes it can blind you to the actual situation that you're in.
So making sure that you're reaching out, utilizing what tools are available and probably having those connections to advisors
before you're in that crisis point. So building those relationships, often in the big in the good times can be really helpful because you know who you can reach out to
when things are starting to get tight and you're needing that that advice. Yeah.
Thank you. What? So obviously you've got your strategies of feeding.
So is it really that drive to maintain that cow condition that triggers a lot of this from what, what you've just taking
to keep that fertility and keeping those animals in, in relatively good enough condition that they're still breeding.
100% and I'm, probably, very lucky in our area that generally speaking, we have very good rainfall and probably don't challenge ourselves too much,
but do challenge ourselves and the fact that we do run a spring and autumn breeding. So we really have to place a focus
on that cow condition real year round for different groups. So there's always that pressure on maintaining stock condition
for breeding, and not only for joining and conception, but also making sure that we can safely carry those guys through the calving
and then get them back up and recovered for next joining. So, that that cow condition for our breeding herd is a huge focus
for us, particularly in those those drought and dry times where you really have to work on that.
In some respects here. What, what other management strategy still sort of look at,
on top of that, feeding of those cows, what are other things to sort of look at to manage that cow condition?
Yeah. I mean, so obviously the big driver is, is, is vitamin F is feed.
So it that it that is the, the big driver for us Brett. And I think probably something that was interesting for us in
that we're very much done differently is in the past we've often run our cattle in very stable management groups.
And even in dry times we get to kind of tend to you think of them as their management groups and they run together.
And something that we've done a bit differently lately is actually run our cattle on body conditions.
So we actively draft and sort through these periods, basically trying to create those those highest risk and those lowest risk
animals, to help us maintain a much more even inconsistent body condition, without overly utilizing or,
over allocating feed, across the board. So that's probably something that even just recently
has been a bit of a change in our in our feeding strategy, for sure. And I know, I know this, personally.
So one of the things that weaning is, is so why you big. Yes. Yes. All right.
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for the prompt Brett. Yes. So I mean, again, being in, a relatively,
stable weather area, weaning for us is probably,
it can be, I would say probably fairly lax. You know, they'll often stay on mums
probably longer than they, they should sometimes and we get away with that. So definitely a focus for us when it gets drier is a real firm.
Kind of focus on when we're pulling those calves off mum. So as soon as condition starts to slip, or hopefully before
the decision is made to pull those calves off and, and that the, the feeding pens that we put in were specifically designed
not only to be used and obviously as, as drought feeding, but specifically designed to best kind of for those younger weaning stock.
So, you know, we can use it year in, year out. And I think probably something that will that will move towards
now that we've had more experience with feeding cattle, is a more routine program for pulling those calves off earlier
and feeding them in those facilities that we've that we've put in. And,
we've just had a question come in and it's probably relevant. The question is that you mentioned dedicated pens
for drought feeding and weaning management also used for sacrifice paddocks. What what are the sort of numbers
and head that you look at running in dedicated pens and sacrifice paddocks? I know the pens are relatively new,
but the sacrifice paddocks. You might cover both of those if you could.
Yeah, definitely. So for that, the, the pens that we've put in for the weaner, for, for our standard kind of weaning, weaning light of that 200 plus we probably fit about 80 head.
So they're not huge but we've got five of them there. So that's basically a typical weaning turn for us.
So that's kind of what we look for, the weaning pen for our sacrifice paddocks
depending on, which property on we're on and what we're using, we're probably still only looking at mobs of, 150 to 180.
So not huge. Because we will have several sacrifice paddocks. But generally speaking, for the split up of our, our paddock size,
sitting at that kind of just under 30 hectares, we kind of see that probably that, that and 150 to 180 would be pretty comfortable for us.
And yeah, there's enough work time saying mob size you've got to be careful, so as there is movement and everyone's different,
like most of our paddocks only have, one water source being, a dam,
we are actively working at putting in trough systems when needed. So we do have bore water and stored water.
So being able to utilize some of those better paddocks better by adding in additional water sources, and that's something
that we have actively been looking at. So just a few more questions here Felicity, obviously there's a fair
bit of pressure that that comes on, but what pressures do you and the family. feel that to keep the breeders and calves productive and, and
and how did that weigh on the family unit on on out. So particularly in that 17,18,19 that sort of
it puts a bit of pressure on just your thoughts on that. It certainly does. And I think it kind of goes 1 of 2 ways.
It pushes you apart and pulls you together. And I think very luckily for us, there's that real sense of pulling you together,
way probably struggle with labor is our biggest one. So often we make decisions and we know what we want to do, and
and labor can be a real, challenge as a lot of, you know, feeding large numbers of cattle, is a time consuming job. So,
finding that ways, those ways to to to utilize what resources we have, to effectively kind of share that load
and try to, to have those that balance between. Yes, it's obviously a really time intensive and busy and stressful, period,
but making sure that we're sharing that load, having that good communication so that, that people do get that, that mental break away from it.
And, and really actively talking about those things. So making sure that you're getting around the kitchen table
with all the people involved. So, you know, Dad and John who do the bulk of the day to day
physical and decision making, but, you know, making sure that we're pulling in, you know, myself that sits in often more an advisory capacity
pulling in my mother who obviously has to live with us all and, and, you know, really cares about how things are going and making sure
we're actively having those conversations, on on how everyone's going and where they're sitting and who need support is, is really, really important.
But I think for us and something that we've learned and probably something that we'll have to look at in the future is, is that labour is a huge,
kind of part of the stressor for us in, in, in managing those dry periods,
I think you answered the next question. So in the family business emotion, business
emotion and decisions often mixed how do you you navigate drought planning with multiple generations?
I think you just answered that one pretty well for us. I think it is. And probably one thing that I would say and, and that I think we've learned
is, is, having these plans and having these discussions in place and before things go awry or things get really challenging.
So making sure that you have a bit of an an after action debrief after a dry period and probably have a bit of a,
a kind of plan, on who sits where, what people roles are,
who's the decision maker or decision makers and drivers of those decision makers before you're in that kind of high pressure
situation has been really, helpful for us as a family. Not wanting to step on each other's toes or offend people, obviously.
And then, yeah, as I said, really just trying to manage that communication is a huge part of it.
So looking back over the past and obviously, you know, growing up with it, what's what's really been the belief or mindset,
that's completely changed for, for your family over the last ten, 15, 20 years.
Oh, that's a that's a tricky one Brett. I think,
I think probably there has probably the biggest shift that I've noticed
just looking in is, dad has always been a passionate animal man.
He was a dairy farmer and could name every one of these milking cows. He has a real passion for for animals and and his cattle.
I think one of the biggest shift is in that I've noticed when I talk to him, is that that much firmer shift
to the conversation doesn't always start with the cattle. It it quite often will start with land, fodder, pasture, soil, and and the thing
that that, is harder for us to change and manipulate in a lot of ways. So I think for us, that mentality shift away from a primary focus
or a sole focus on on animal and production to a more holistic thinking and probably, a bigger focus on that.
Pasture, soil and, and fodder side of things. Brett would probably be the biggest shift that I've, I've noticed.
Yeah. Also just, you know, obviously, you know, in your situation how do you mind maintain
the momentum on longer term goals like succession or business expansion when sort of the droughts does put put you under the pump?
As you said, the labour is short. If you're making decisions on the run, you've had to have a plan.
But you know you're still making day to day decisions. How do you sort of handle that, that trying to sort out
the long term goals for your business and the family? Yeah. And I think I think that's really, come down to having those
I want firm plans in place, but also having those discussions. So I think all of us having an active stake in the business and a passion
for the business, each of us kind of know where we sit and what our roles are. And, you know, probably who can take
is in the best position to take this the step back and say, we're in it at the moment, but we still have to be thinking about these other things.
But because, you know, they're rumbling along in the background and we have to keep a focus on that. And I think, you know, we've actively as a family,
consistently had conversations, as you said, about around things such as succession, who fits where in the business and, and kind of what their role is.
And I think and having those kind of clear discussions, clear roles have been really helpful for us in,
in keeping the business moving forward, even when so much of our day to day sucked into just keeping things, things running.
Brett and I suppose I don't know if dad would probably say this, and I hope he would, that sometimes having that outside voice and I sometimes
think of myself as that outside voice, it is really hand, handy and whether that comes from someone within your business
or within your family, or whether that outside voice comes from a mentor, an advisor, and consultant can be really useful,
in kind of pulling you out of that day to day mentality and putting some of that focus onto that, that long term strategy and and movement.
Thanks very much, Mate. I've just got one question that I think is probably worthwhile, whacking it now,
you you've mentioned about maintaining the condition on those cows, what some of your real critical targets for both mature cows and heifers,
where you sort of start to pull those triggers before joining and the like.
Yeah. So, I mean, as, our body condition score triggers probably don't change a lot
from good to bad. Years. Like we really do try to keep that consistent. So when we think about it, two and a half for our mature
cow going in to joining would be a big one. We probably try to keep a little bit more cover on our higher risk groups.
Heifers and second calvers or first calf heifers. In terms of two and a half, three,
trying to keep a little bit more cover on those high risk girls that we know, will probably pull a little bit more off, over that production period.
Plus also, you will slip in feed during joining, 100%.
If it's if it's not quite good enough, it soon gets there. Sorry,
So thanks very much for that. Felicity, obviously. That's been great.
And we'll get you to hold on for the questions at the end, but, we might just, currently just move over to,
sorry, Brett is not a technical guru. We'll just go through quickly Matt's there, and onto
you Kate, you know, it's thanks very much for joining us Kate. Obviously, there's there's some information there, but,
Kate could you could you tell us a little bit about your cattle operation, where are you based and how you typically manage your property
through the seasons plus dry seasons? Thanks, Brett.
We're fairly small compared to Felicity. We've only got, 650 hectares, about 1600 acres.
We usually run about 300, breeder cows.
During summer that last summer, we sold down 100 of those,
just to, to maintain ground cover. We learned a lot of tough lessons in the 2019 18 19 drought.
Which, forced us to, rediscover
our infrastructure needs and learn a lot about, cattle nutrition and management.
So we sort of went two ways. We, we ramped up our infrastructure in terms of feeding
and terms of feeding, delivery and story, feed storage and feed processing.
So we, we started off, we were just paddock feeding hay off the back of a ute.
And the cows were, you know, not doing great. So we sort of needed to learn about
what kind of energy, requirements the animals had. And we sort of learned, that hay wasn't just enough.
So we started feeding pellets and we, we ended up we needed some water.
So we, put some bores down and put some troughs into, into various low lying paddocks.
We built some, silos. We built a,
a feed commodity storage shed, which you can see there in the photos that's got, six concrete bunkers in it.
And we can tip bulk feed straight into that. There's a roller mill that we've, hooked up
that, feeds directly from the silos and then dumps rolled either grain.
Barley or wheat into the, commodity shed. And then I can just use a tele handler to feed the, to load the mixer.
Making our own mix was far more, economical than buying pellets and feeding those.
And then we can use a different variety of hays. We've got things like lucerne hay or pasture hay or cereal hay or silage
and with the help of our nutritionist, we've got a few different, rations
that we feed to cattle and depends on the, class of the cattle that what we're trying to do, whether we're just trying to, maintain,
an older cow or we're trying to, add weight to younger stock.
Yeah. I'm a bit jealous of that commodity shed, I'll tell you, just looking at it.
It's very good. We can use it for, like, all sorts of things, you know, storing urea or, yeah, super or whatever.
And then we can just load it straight into the spreader. It's very easy. And with a
mix mixer like you've got, obviously you can make like use of different and particularly depending on you nutritionally
some different feeds that you couldn't normally feed that you can put into a mix. It pretty easy if you find that.
Yeah, very much so. And the mixer has got really good scales on it.
And I've got an app on my phone that talks to those scales, and I have that beside me in the tele handler, and I've got different rations.
Again, that my nutritionist has made up for me. And, the app's brilliant at just talks to me and goes through all the different.
It's a top con that's, called tap feed, that's a top con branded product.
And, it talks to the mixer. And then as I'm going down,
I can use this in the feedlot or we call the feedlot the drought lot.
Or I can do it in different paddocks. Sometimes I'm still feeding rather than in the drought lot. Sometimes I'm just giving a bit of a top up feed.
Still in a few paddocks with the mixer and I've got those paddocks named and
then the mixer sort of knows where it is and it delivers it tells me how much feed I need to deliver
to each class of animal. I like when someone says they've got a feed mixer.
It makes my job with nutritional advice very easy. It's the best thing that we bought.
We bought an old one in the first in the at first in 2019, and we're on our third one now, and, I couldn't do without it.
It's brilliant, so when you think about managing your cattle during the drought,
how do you aim to balance your priorities, including protecting your you that pasture conservation, maintaining your core
breeding stocking, and also that cash flow that you've got to get to to keep things running.
A couple of different things like we usually we look at numbers. We're very data driven.
And I really do my, feed calculations sums, rather than think that I'm going to feed them through for
several months, it really costs a lot of money to to buy feed for cows. So we try to act early and often.
We'll sell a class of cattle, which will then pay for feed for the core breeders.
So where we might sell the weaners early or we might sell, in summer we sold everything over five years old.
And that sort of then pays for the feed for the rest of the mob. Really?
So you mentioned it. What what what sort of some of the tools that you sort of look and use like what,
what are some of the, some of the tools you've mentioned about the app? You've got with your feeder and that? What are some of the other tools to help you with those decisions
and the like? The, the little,
the DPI drought, feed app on the phone is the one of the best tools ever
because you can really quickly, anywhere, just do some sums on some, different feeds
and you can make up a quick ration whether it you using just, just one product or I think it can make up to,
three products in a, in a mix, and you can just quickly see is the cow getting enough
nutrition, enough energy, out of that mix. So that's something that that we started with.
I've gone to Excel now and, and and created a big one. And also, I use my nutritionist even though I, I do it myself,
I don't really make any decisions without checking with my nutritionist. We also have an agronomist who, we speak to really regularly.
We do soil tests on everything. On all our pastures,
just to maintain, the soil quality.
But yeah, we're on top of, I suppose, making sure that we've, we're getting rid of weight and we're putting enough,
fertilizer on the soil. We actually have, we fertilize
all our, native, not native. Our improved pastures with, manure that we get out of our drought lot.
So we've got a manure spreader and the drought lot. It generates a lot of manure, like, hundreds of tonnes a year.
And then we spread that out a couple of times a year.
No worries. And obviously feed tested, probably. I don't know, Felicity mentioned about feed test.
You use feed test as well. Yeah, definitely. Yep, yep.
Collect a lot of data. Collect a lot of, data on, the weight gain of the animals.
The nutritional value of the feed, the cost of the feed,
costs of different types of feed, and analyzing that all the time, you know, and, might be changing, you know, a protein source, whether it be,
canola meal versus cottonseed, you know, that's
a simple one. Yeah. wheat just like for energy,
it not makes a big difference. So based on your experience feeding cattle
through through droughts and dry periods, what's worked? What hasn't worked regarding feed types, feed set ups, logistics, etc.?
What were two of some of the learning you reckon? Some of the big take, the things that you've moved on.
Obviously you've gone into this feeding set up now.
Not not knowing. Not knowing the nutritional value of the feed is a big mistake because
you could be feeding and wasting money on, on a hay or a silage.
That's that's not good enough nutrients in it to maintain body weight.
And it really could take a couple of weeks. And your cattle are still slipping in weight. And then it's really hard to get them back up to where you started from.
And it's cost. You probably a couple of loads, truck loads of hay to learn that lesson.
And I think that's where the mixer is good that you can mix, mix even a pellet or a hay
or grain with the hay. That was a tough lesson.
Also not not analyzing things back to a dry matter basis.
If you're saying that one product, a product might seem cheap, but it might be the 30% water
you've really got to, do your sums and bring everything back to a, a dry matter calculation.
So you're comparing apples with apples with with looking at feed. They're probably some of the lessons that, that we learned,
you're getting a huge yes. That dry matter basis, I know.
So one of the banes I've had in my career is over from someone goes, oh, I've got this feed. It's terrific. It's great.
And, and waste products are a classic, where at times. You know, you can have sort of 80, 90% water
in some of these waste products and, and then, yeah, feed works out pretty dear then.
It does indeed. You know, you've made my night.
Understanding acidosis and BRD is a big thing too. You know, the cattle get pretty stressed.
We, we pretty strict about, you know, trying to manage our acidosis
while not giving them too much of a grain. You know, we're gradually, building them up, to that
high grain diet if we're sort of on a fattening ration. And then BRD as well, we use, NH and
the rhinoguard MH the Cooper's in MH. What it's called Felicity would know that,
Bovilis MH single shot RTU. That one. And the, And the rhinoguard as well.
Saying they haven't they don't board occasionally. Look,
you know, what are the changes you've made with your grazing as part of your drought preparedness?
Obviously, you've been putting on the fertilizer and the like. What what sort of some of the changes you've made in your grazing?
We've really, we've made a few smaller paddocks, so that if we,
if we did have to sacrifice any paddocks, we're, we're very lucky now we've built this lovely drought lot.
So it it's 210m long by 70m
deep. It can house a lot of animals, but if we do sometimes
just want to feed some in the paddocks, we don't. We're pretty strict and we don't let those paddocks go down to dirt,
we move them around pretty quick. We've got troughs in most of the in most of the smaller paddocks now,
this is, yeah. And I mean, I know Felicity's, but also looking at yours
with some of the photos in the set up, that access is important to be able to get access even when we do get that rain.
Did you find that that?
Yeah. So there's a slight slope on on where, where we put our drought loy=t lot so that we've got runoff.
It does get really muddy if you've got stock in there in winter, and they don't like that very much where, we try to clean it out.
We're cleaning it every couple of months. We, we've got a, a little excavator that we clean it out, and then we stockpile the manure,
and then we let it sort of sit for a couple of months, and then we spread it on the, on those flats that you can see in the picture behind that drought lot.
There. I really like the safety of, having laneways and things like that.
I don't have to when you are feeding in sacrifice paddocks
fighting the cattle at the gate, it can get pretty dangerous if you don't want them to box up with another mob,
because you're racing back to the tractor, and the minute you forget to, pull the handbrake on, it's pretty dangerous.
Not that I've done that, but, I love that I don't have to fight for them to,
you know, they're all, inside different pens if I need them to be. And I'm not getting out, and opening a gate.
I just run along the lane way and feed into a feed bunk. Yeah, it's very safe.
And the cattle are secure. A lot of it. We call that lovely one hardware disease.
Because all the time you start running into them, bumping into them and causing a few little issues, and they start to put the pressure on.
Yeah. always interesting. So, you know, I got a preempted
this one before with your water security, it's often overlooked and until it's too late or you've got an issue or
so they're looking at that water availability and quality and part of what sort of some of the things and tips that you would, would given.
And what's your thought on that? A water for the stock. Yeah, it's very tough.
We, we put in a couple of bores in 2019 and we've,
we built some more dams as well. But obviously they didn't fill up that you
and then this summer as well we had water trouble. So we put in another couple of bores.
So yeah. Problem with the bores, it doesn't have a gauge. Yeah.
You just during the summer, we had to sell down a few cattle
because we, we were running out of water. We were carting water. Carting water's not very much fun.
So, yeah, we've just hopefully with these two extra bores, they've,
so far, tests are showing that they've, got a good amount of water.
Yeah it's one of those learnings we had to with some of these bores.
I know, we're where we start running the issues because the quality the as a drip went on and on,
the water quality, the water declined, concentrated.
All of a sudden we had some quality issues, which then, you know, we had some stock stopped drinking.
We had bladder stones. There was a whole heap of myriad of things. And when stock stopped drinking, they stopped eating.
And they know of some people that fix water and all of a sudden go and say, yeah, two, one, I seen this. It's, as I said, is at the beginning.
It's, it's it's always one of those ones. That water side of things is vitally important.
It's, so over the years, the investments you made, before drought,
such as infrastructure, genetics, training, you know, what's turned out to be more valuable than you expected, you know, now
you've talked about the nutrition side of things and other bits and pieces. Personal training was really valuable.
I went to as many things like this might have been an LLS day.
It might have been, an MLA day or something that our local vets have put on as many,
could have been a drought thing or a confinement feeding thing. I looked up a lot of stuff on YouTube.
Just personal development, on learning about confinement feeding, learning about,
the requirements of the cattle, nutrition and learning about,
yeah, the feed, you know, different feedstuffs. And then, the cattle health, you know, I'm, I'm not a vet.
So up there, I learned a lot about, you know, acidosis and BRD and the things that that are important to me in a day to day business.
The other valuable things. Well, I think, that we spent a lot of money on, on the infrastructure.
So to, to sort of make the infrastructure pay off with sort of use the drought lot as a bit of an opportunity feedlot.
And we're doing a little bit of trading in and out of it, otherwise to sit around,
have it empty for, you know, a long time cost a lot of money. But just
doing it right to start with, you know, we started off with just the fences were just netting, and wire,
we still had the feed bunks, but just the, the fences around it were netting and wire and the cattle rubbed on it?
And then eventually push through it and pushed it over, especially when it sort of got wet. So yeah, now we've sort of replace that with, with bull rail
and some of the, stay type cattle rail, cattle wire,
yeah. Doing it right. That feed shed has just been my mind so easy for me.
As you know, I don't have to start up different tractors to turn on, you know, PTOs to, to, you know, get augers to go and things like that.
Everything's at a press of a button, and, and the mixer, we've had a couple of older mixers
that the new mixer with the with the twin screw has been. It does a great job. And the little
the feed app I have is probably, the most simple thing, but it makes everything so accurate.
I'm not dealing with the calculator and going, oh, gosh, I've got to put in, you know, 600 kilos of a product.
And I've already got, you know, a thousand kilos in the mixer. Well, that's a pretty easy math sum to do.
But when you get all, you know, different sorts of numbers and you're doing maths in your head as you're typing at the tele handler and you're trying to listen to the radio
and stuff, the app starts beeping at me when I've got enough, enough product in of that variety in the mixer, and I just take
whatever it's still in the bucket, back to the shed. Then the next thing, no worries. So
a couple of quick personal questions. You know, obviously drought brings a lot of pressure. Emotionally, financially, physically.
What have you learned about maintaining focus while running the business through those tough, tough seasons and and the family and that because.
Yeah. Well, I know we talked the other day about you were talking about the boys, away
at school, kids away and all the rest of it, and and trying to run that, you know, run the farm, run the drought, plus run the family.
So it's all the things that can get pretty tough at times. And I think a, a big mortgage and big debt is a big motivator.
You just take I think we try it. You try to take time out. I think we've got to just sit down and take a deep breath
and look at our numbers. And, you know, if times are tough, it's like, well, what? What can we sell?
What class of stock can we sell? Do we wean early and sell weaners rather than, rather than feed them
through or we we sell older stock. And then it's just try to, Yeah, let's just get off the farm,
go, go and watch the footy or go, go for water ski or something like that. Just try and know,
take a deep breath and go and do something enjoyable. Spend some time with your family,
with, so, you know, obviously that decision making when you stressed, tired and under pressure,
I know you've talked about people, you've got a nutritionalist, you're agronomist and that you've also got.
Yeah that that app automatically I think the drought app has got the you know sort of I think there's 43
automated warnings that come up if you start doing like it's, it's talking to an old livestock officer, going don't do that.
Don't do that. But what what sort of sort of your decision approach when you're stressed tired, what systems do you have?
What strategies do you really rely on when you're going through it?
Yeah. But you just yeah, it got to keep got the cattle, got to be fed.
So you just you just keep going, I suppose. You know, I just
try to try to keep positive, you know, I do a lot of, I try to do a lot of
listen to podcast mindset podcasts and things like that. You just, you try to keep positive and, you know.
Yeah, hopefully you sell enough stock to, to pay for feed or, I think trading has really helped us in terms of cash flow.
You know, we've got a constant turnover of animals coming in and out now. We've sort of reduced our breeding herd a little bit
and replaced those numbers with, with trading stocks. I think that has been a good decision in our business.
It helps with the cash flow turnover. And then I can also easily flick them if I need to.
If we come to another dry spell. So I think making decisions early, making them on
on data, not getting attached to, what class of cattle you've got to sell. You just got to do it based on the data.
The that's answered quite a few questions. I was actually gonna throw at you. Looked at, a couple there
Thank you. We we've got a couple of questions coming. The Kate. And please, if I could get you to turn your microphone as well.
Just, Sorry. Once again, technical Brett. I suppose now's a chance
to open up the questions from the audience with people have got. We've got here question, from Mark.
See how many hectares in size approximately. You sacrifice paddocks that you that you tend to use on your farm.
Yeah. So we, we probably and are a little bit constrained by we tend to try to choose
sacrifice paddocks that are closest to feed storage. So not having to to cart feed too much.
So most of those will sit. We've probably got some smaller ones that sit about that kind of 15 to 18 hectares, but most of them will sit.
That kind of 30 hectares would be pretty standard for us have for paddock size, and we haven't as of yet.
And it's something to think about whether we try to break those down, even with temporary fencing.
But at this stage we've, we've been using existing paddock structures, to do that in.
Yeah. For you breeding herd there Felicity.
How many breeders do you run in your non drought condition. Sort of in your mob sizes that you tend to run and not, not too much bigger
than probably what we go 100 to 120 would be probably the biggest. We said certainly we have some smaller mobs that kind of 80
to 85, would be fairly normal, but sitting at about that 100 mark.
So we probably would, you know, one and a half or double that when we start to condense them down into to, to a drought feeding situation.
Question also on the cows in that sacrifice paddock when you're due to calve soon or you're about to calve,
do you reduce the mob size down to smaller the mobs to minimize that mismothering?
Yeah, definitely. So so probably pre calving probably 2 to 3 weeks before expected calving date.
They'll be moved out, so they'll be put on to a bigger area and probably maximum size
for calving for us is, is that 80, 85 on similar sized paddocks.
So those 30 days. But they will be moved out to, to calve down that, that calving in high density or calving in a sacrifice
paddock is in our experience has been fraught with trouble. So yeah, we do do actively kick them out and give them the space and,
and kind of a more normal calving situation for them. Obviously sometimes we do have to supplement, in those calving paddocks,
which for us just looks like, we actually invested in a mixer too.
And that's, that's been handy for us because we can do and generally out at mix is a silage cottonseed mix.
And we're just hand feeding on the ground for those calving girls, as has has worked well for us in those situations.
Yeah they'll they'll pick that up won't they. So Kate
Do you use any pasture forecasting tools like the farming forecaster
to sort of help you with that past is also the the moisture that's there on what they are now.
There's there's a degree of those in the South East LLS and into the Riverina area and the like.
Do you, do you use any of those. No, I did do a Prograze course
a few years ago, and it was very valuable. I just know I sort of rely my agronomist a little bit.
I'm probably a bit naughty for not not doing that myself, but, I just.
Yeah, I'll rely on him for that kind of stuff. Really. Yeah. So obviously, you know, the fodder budgets and all the rest of it's got to work
at pasture quantity and quality pretty quick. What was that sorry?
That obviously with, you know, you just look at doing fodder budgeting and stuff like that and the pasture quality and quality.
It just this is a personal question, Kate I know sort of it's one of those ones, when I'm dealing with people, you know, obviously
when you've got them locked up in these small areas, how much time do you spend actually looking at the animals, looking at the poo.
And so one of these things I always say to people, become a poo-ologist is just to have a look at their poo, tell you what you're doing.
But in, in this situation, like you've got where you've got them locked up and feeding,
what do you sort of look at to give you some of those tells that you've got a little bit of an issue or you're going over,
or do you think there might be some room for improvement? Oh, very much.
Look at the poo a lot, I'm down there all the time. I'll go in sort of first thing in the day.
I go and and check them out, and I go right around a pen. And I just,
Yeah, walk through and and, you know, just check them out and I'll talk to them up the gate.
So my kids are away at school, so they're like my children, all these animals that are. Yeah, I'm the crazy cow woman.
Yeah. From the poo. You can sort of, you know, monitor acidosis.
Yeah. Just, you know, if one's looking sick, we'll pull her out. We've got a bit of a hospital pen up near the yards.
You might pull her out. And if you have to, something, really wrong, we'll get a vet out, have a look.
Otherwise, we'll we'll keep a closer eye on her. At the cattle yard.
No worries, Felicity do you collect data on your cattle to inform decision making around which animals are retained or sold or dry,
etc., or any specific traits that you you really chase and measure?
Yeah. So we probably haven't been the best at that in the past, and it is probably a, a bigger priority for us, going forward.
We have a really strict policy on, on culling, on reproductive performance. So in terms of using that as an indice for choice of, of of culling and dry
times, it becomes hard because essentially nothing gets a second turn on farm.
So if she's not successfully reared a calf, she doesn't stay with us. So it's difficult to use that one as.
And it's probably our biggest driver obviously, of productivity. So we do that routinely, season on season.
So harder to use that in a dry time. But one thing that we do particularly want to to track,
and we do have a focus on, I don't know if anyone else experience with black cattle. Our probably frame score and size of our cows have,
been getting bigger, so we're actively got a focus on trying to get a more moderate frame in our breeding herds.
So a big focus for us is looking at how those cattle maintain, condition over the production period.
So where they sit in row, kind of and against their cohort.
So those cattle running in the same condition, who holds better condition. Than those and, and using that as another selection indices for us and,
and and really actively looking at trying to frame score and size of our cattle because, you know, we've found more and more,
that keeping condition on those bigger framier Angus cattle is, is a challenge.
And particularly when it comes to when you're having to, to supplementary feed them. The cost of doing that is, is quite high.
So that's, that's probably for us in terms of, of keeping data and looking at it.
It's more around body weight and and body condition score through that production period.
It was one of the first things I learned when I joined the department, with some of the room nutritionists for every 50 KGs, mature weight,
the cow you've got to feed her an extra kilo of 9 megajoule feed. Good answer.
And we're really seeing that with the the increasing size of our breeding herd. Like as in physical size of the cattle.
So, that that is a focus for us is reaching our a really productive cow, but still having that that moderate, moderate or more medium
kind of frame score and body can mature body weight.e
I might just mindful of, of the time factor. Thank you.
You know Kate and Felicity for, for coming online and sharing with us. It's it's really has been terrific.
and I've really enjoyed it. I think it's been good. I'm glad Kate that you're a fellow poo-ologist like myself.
And going to have a look. And and the like, but, just before we wind
up, I'd like to tell you that there's another webinar in this series, Lessons from the Land.
It's a cropping session on the 4th of November, next week.
So that's on at seven. And if you're interested in that, you can actually,
put your phone up to that QR code and that that will take you there. But the final one
that we would really need from you is the feedback. And it really is, important that we,
you help us deliver the content that you'd like to see in the future. So, if, if we could please get you the,
scan that QR code, or I think Ella was going to whack that.
And just like that, she's whacked the event in next week and in the chat. And and we will send that this out,
once we get the YouTube recording done and the like as well. So I really would like to thank you both,
for opening up, putting up with my asking the questions. And the effort
you've put in, it's much appreciated, particularly at a very, very busy time. And I know Kate's been flat out doing, you know, the,
the job of inducting what'd you said 200 something animals yesterday.
Yeah. yesterday and this morning, they didn't arrive until late So some of them had a little camp in the yards over night Thank you, thank you.
And and Felicity who's currently not out at a conference in, but sitting in a motel room to do this for us tonight.
I really do appreciate the time and have found it quite valuable. So I thank you very, very much to the pair of you.
And thanks very much to everyone for, for hanging in there. We've pretty much everyone's hanging hung in there tonight.
Thank you very, very much. And, we'll, we'll send that information out and, and the recording of today.
Thanks very much, everyone. And we'll catch up with you.

Welcome to tonight's webinar, lessons from the land the cropping session. Tonight we will hear from three New South Wales cropping producers
about their cropping operations, their experiences managing drought and some of the lessons learned along the way.
My name is Kate Pearce. I'm the drought adoption officer for the New South Wales Local Land Services.
This webinar is brought to you by the Drought Adoption Officer Program, which has received funding
from the Australian Government's Future Drought Fund through the Southern New South Wales Innovation Hub and the Southern Queensland,
Northern New South New New South Wales Innovation Hub. The acknowledgment.
Local Land Services acknowledges that it stands on the Country which always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
We acknowledge the traditional Custodians of the land and waters and we show our respect and respect for Elders past, present and emerging.
We are committed to providing places in which Aboriginal people are included socially, culturally and economically.
Through thoughtful and collaborative approaches to our work.
Just a bit of housekeeping for tonight's webinar. This session is being recorded and will be available on YouTube
channel, our YouTube channel to view later. We encourage that you ask questions throughout the session
using only the Q&A function and not the chat function on your screen,
and please include which produced the panelist you are directing your question towards.
We will then answer these questions toward the end of the presentation at the conclusion of tonight's webinar.
So please fill out our post-event survey, which we will show you at after the Q&A session at the end.
We value your feedback and this helps us to deliver the content you like to see in the future.
I will now go on to introduce tonight's panelists. Firstly, we will hear from David Gooden.
David is the director of a family farming business at GoodCo Farm.
And I'm sorry, David, if I've said that wrong, I'm sure you could correct me a bit later this evening.
He is the manager of the crop Production and Dry Land Property, which produces canola, wheat, barley, legumes and green
manure crops under a controlled traffic farming system. For with full stubble retention.
The business also has internal trucking enterprise and Gooden Welding, which makes chemical batching trailers.
David has experience in agri business, supply chain working with stock and station agents before joining Dalgety after leaving school in 97.
Can after leaving school. After leaving school, sorry and in 97 completed
a Bachelor of Applied Science in Agriculture. Since then he has been actively involved in the family business.
In 2010, David was awarded enough food scholarship and travelled for 16 weeks into 12 different countries
studying global agricultural, agriculture and spray application, technology regulation, testing and training.
David is married to his wife Heidi, who is also an agronomist at the Delta
AG, based in Lockhart.He's passionate about the future of agriculture and wants to see rural communities grow and develop.
Then we will hear from Jen Jeffries. Jen went home in 2005 to Weebollabolla.
We believe all the more. After a stint up north completing a business degree at Orange AG
and then mate and mate trading in Penrith in 2020. In 2010, she moved over 1000km away to her husband's family farm.
Delegate station. Delegate, where she continues to commute between the two family properties.
From one end of the state to the other. In 2019, she officially took
over the management of Norland Pastoral. The team manages over 10,000 hectares, of
which 7000 hectares is cropping and the rest is grazed. And thirdly, tonight we will hear from John Stephenson.
John has spent the majority of his working life as a Warakirri cropping employee.
Commencing as an assistant farm manager at Englefield Plains in 97, John quickly graduated to management
and spent two years managing Ryobi in southern Queensland. John spent 20 years managing Orange
Park in the New South Wales Riverina, before transitioning to a role as the Southern Regional manager in 21.
John has a passion. It has a passion for optimizing systems and efficiency,
and has a strong understanding of the key drivers for investor returns in broadcast production, agriculture.
So thank you to our three panelists for joining us tonight. I will now hand over to our first panellist, David,
and start with his questions. So, David, welcome to tonight's webinar.
To start us off, can you tell us a bit about your farms and provide an overview of the main drought management strategies
that you have utilised on your properties during dry seasons?
Thanks, Kate. Yeah. David Gordon, good Co farm. It's made up of four families.
We work as a collaboration across 4000 hectares in Lockhart southern New South Wales. We're all dryland farming.
We grow canola, wheat, barley and legumes. And annual rainfall ranges from in the last 20 years, from,
about 170 mills in our 7 to 950 odd mills in 20 to.
And that reflects in our average weight yields from about 0.5 tonnes of a hectare to. I have a five hectare average yield across the farm.
Wheat yields across the farm. So, some of the drought strategies
that, our risk management strategies that we put in place, and number one is about planning and having a good plan.
And the most important thing about planning is having a plan to change. And knowing what changes we can make
that will have the least amount of compromises. And whether that's, we compromise on weight.
We want to be selling our highest productive land. We want to be selling where there's, some soil moisture, a high fertility.
So we want to make sure we're getting those, the right crop growing at the right time in those in those important places.
So this year, with the lack of sign moisture at sowing time in April, we just changed the siding over to the plan to start.
Just got changed around. And the important thing there was to chase moisture so we can get some
crop up out of the ground on the little bit of moisture that we did have. So we changed the order of sowing, went inside some paddocks
and got canola, emerged early. And the other change remained.
This year was just changing our crop top. So pulling canola out of the system in one block and slowing it down to barley.
Which is also on dry, this year. Now the
drought management strategy is just continuing to improve. So we need to invest in what's important on the farm,
whether that's equipment, improving the landscape. And that's just to try and reduce the risk of, anything going wrong.
Risk of lack of rain. Farming is a long term goal or a long term plan.
So we need to look after what we what we have. And the third main point on I like to make was understanding our costs.
Whether that's through benchmarking or whatever we need to do, just understand
what costs we can cut that will have the least impact on our bottom line and on the overall farm
performance over the long the long term. So that was the three main points I wanted to make tonight to start us off.
Thanks, David. They're great. They're great. And that probably perfectly sets us up for the next question.
Which which you have kind of touched on. David. So what are the benefits of early or late sowing or
using short duration varieties during drought years? You have mentioned, that you do change crop types and timing.
So can you just elaborate a bit more about, I suppose, the benefits around doing that?
Yeah. For us it's about maximizing yield and even biomass. So, yeah, it's it's matching the moisture
or the or the, the crop type to the season. If we've got moisture, we want to be selling a long season variety to maximize the yield and biomass potential.
And then if we dry sowing something, we might have to say something shorter season because the rain might come for a while.
So we need to show that. So those shorter season varieties to make sure they're not flowering into late into springtime because, biomass is really important.
Sometimes we can grab plenty of biomass but can't grow yield. And so buying biomass becomes important because there's a high option available.
And especially in dry years when people are after feeding high, it becomes, a worthwhile proposition sometimes to, to make, make high.
Thank you. Thank you. David. That is that is a worthwhile option for sure. And obviously a good drought management strategy to have for making hay.
I suppose in, in recent times, or even this year is, is that turning out.
We've, we've making any hay. Not this year.
Only for it being dry. There was now the need to cut high.
Last year we had frost, so that was, gave us a raise and another reason to to take that risk and cut high.
This year, we just let the crops go and, we'll see what happens. It's been cooling off, and it was going to rain, so,
Yeah, we didn't pull that trigger this year. Thank you. David. Thank you.
Our next technical questions. How do weather based forecasting tools
and ag technology help support your drought management plans? David?
Yeah. Really? It's about helping us to plan and prepare. So there's plenty of tools and there's plenty of data,
that we have now from, from the history and, and that helps us to, estimate our paddocks potential.
Looking back at past years, we also use spreadsheets and just look at what's happened before in the past and try and predict,
you know, different seasons and, and how they and the outcome to say when that helps us for this year's planning.
Thank you. David. Is there a is there a favorite tool lack with a platform or,
you know, tool that you, you prefer to use that really helps?
No, there's a there's a there's quite a lot. Climate's a really good one for looking at past history and, and, and now and what's happened in the past.
But now there's, there's a, there's a lot of weather forecasting apps that we've just got to go through and work out what's the best for us.
But climate is a good one for looking at past things for our local area, past events
for sure. Thank you. David. What land preparation techniques,
do you use to help conserve soil moisture on your farm?
Retaining stables at the most important thing for us, ground. Ground cover.
Retaining stable in a rye sowing. And having control traffic. Farming's been a really important part of that, process
over the last 20 years while we've been doing it. It's, it's part of what we do now. So it's one of those things
we often forget about, but it's, it's part of the system. It's reducing our compaction,
and it's making our soil health better. In the cropping in the cropping area.
So, I think that's a really good they're really good tools that we is to, maintain ground cover, and build soil organic matter.
Yeah. That's great. David. Thank you. This next question is probably one that will feature
throughout the whole, series of, of tonight's webinar. But David, what is the top three actions that you have taken that have created
drought resilience in your farm operation and farming operation? I suppose previous droughts, may have influence on this answer.
And yeah, you may be able to elaborate on one particular lesson that really stands out that you've learned.
Good or bad, it doesn't matter. But yeah, it would be love. Love to hear what you what you have to share.
Yeah. Well, good rotation, building soil, organic matter, and moisture and, and that is probably been our best.
The sacred to our, you know, resilience, I guess, because if you've got a good rotation and a and a spread of,
different crop types and actually spreading risk, and some years you benefit from,
those crops over the next 3 or 4 years and some examples of that, being when we Brahman you in some crops,
we've been able to say those benefits of that one one crop in the next three seasons in providing a
the nitrogen or more moisture, for the following crop. So it's benefit, you know, that, growing more biomass or better yields,
in those tight years where we retain that moisture from one annual crop,
so that's one example. Minimum till and stubble retention is certainly the other, action.
We've definitely taken and having good equipment. So, in order to,
to sow and germinate crops, you need to understand how equipment works and, and and knowing where you're putting your seed and,
and getting that set to germinate on minimal moisture is a really important feature in our environment.
Just to get crop emerging, crop growing. Is a really good tool
of achieving high, high yields and being more resilient. So can you say, say to to place
to say in the right place, where that staple or shallow and for dry sowing purposes, having the right equipment,
and understanding how it works, is a really good tool, I think. So there some three ones for us.
Okay. Thank you, thank you. David, that that's great.
I will now go on to some more personal based questions. Looking back at major droughts you've managed through,
is there a particular moment or decision that stands out as a turning point for you, either practically or personally?
I couldn't think of one quite. But it's really about continuing to evolve, and learn.
And it's really about making good decisions in tough times. And that's about the taking risks or trying to remove
risks from the business and, you know, from the environment where we're in.
So I think it's about trying to evolve and learn as we go along and, and make good decisions.
Yeah. So very good points, David. Now, David, I have heard that the community in Lockhart
is a nice and strong one. What do you think is important to keep people connected
in times when seasons get dry and tough? Yeah. Well, John, John will be able to relate to some of those,
but certainly coming together, as a community, as a group of farmers or, or the like as a sporting group or whatever.
Like I've been lucky we've had I am an Agora, which is our farmer group, which still continues to be active and be fairly successful.
Which brings helps bring people together. We've got active farmers and our John was involved in active farmers in Lochart, and we've got one that has been now.
So, doing little things like that, is important, to keep our mind active and, and things thinking back to why from the farm.
Yeah. That's amazing. That's really, really good to hear. I'll give it one last personal question.
To round out your part of tonight's, panelists webinar.
David,how do you maintain focus on long term goals such
as, you know, planning and, and I suppose maintaining productivity
in the thick of, you know, a gruelling drought, and maintaining that positivity in in times when it is really tough.
Yeah. I think understanding that that farming is a long term game and long term plan. And I think the main important thing is,
we still need to invest in what's important. And so whether that's people or, or wades or ground cover, to improve
soil organic matter, you know, improving our understanding of finance,
it's all those little things and that evolve over time.
But the need to continue to invest is important, I think. And, I think that's, that's what sort of drives us to keep,
keep improving is just, to keep improving and work together to try and make things better for, for the next time.
Yeah. Thank you David. That's great. If anyone has any questions, like I said at the start, please pop them in the Q&A
function and address them to David, and we will come back to them at the end.
Next we will hear from Jen Jefferies. So Jen, thank you and welcome to tonight's
webinar Jen, to get it started. Can you provide
can you provide an overview of your property and walk us through some of the key strategies
you've used during drought, drought periods to keep things running?
Thanks, Kate. Yeah. We have the two main properties based, ones have been all about
ten kilometres east of Vogel, below, which has approximately 3500 hectares of cropping.
We have, stud breeders based on that property. The goats and,
some trade cattle as seasons permit and that we all of which surrounds Moree to the north and east, we have that 7500 hectares of cropping.
We've have our 59th annual bull sale in 26. We have trade cattle and we do actually have a thousand head,
accredited feedlot that we, grain prices have been fairly handy over the last four years.
So we've opted with sort of changed that, enterprise slightly and used it more as a management tool.
But yeah, I have, the drought strategies. I think I mean, obviously every drought and farm and family are different.
We've actually been around since we've had we Bulla since, 1873
and the novel, since the 1890s. And, we've had a lot of,
adaptations over the years, well over a century. And,
yeah, I think, I think droughts are always good for, I mean, you should be doing this
constantly, but a drought, especially that really last big one, was a great opportunity for us to sort of reassess
where the business was financially and assess the team's capacity and skill set, and then also your infrastructure and
machinery ideally have this, ticking along constantly. But, the last one gets a really good kick up for us to get things happening.
But obviously, we really well, during the drought,
the five year rotation did go out the window, but we, we were able to reset that and get everything back in order.
With that winter cereal, Winter pulse went to see along Longfellow summer crop
double, and then double crop, after the summer crop, which, I think that's that's one of the biggest things
you really need to have your business set up, to really pounce on those goodies when they do happen.
Because, that's why you need to average it out. The good news over those bad is.
So, you. So profile is crucial. Obviously, annual rainfall has a big factor
to do with that, but you can't control that one. So the stubble retention and fellow management,
you know, really helps with that. Making sure you, you have that profile,
ready to go and, you know, it can definitely
be the difference between having a crop or not in low decile years. I mean, this year in particular, it was very strange.
We've all had one of its better seasons, although. But in January, there was no profile, so I thought it was going to be.
We were going to have more than our 20% Longfellow, happening. But, as it turned out, we got quite good rain.
We Buller and but no. Yeah, it was, it was just literally that we had that planned rain ready to jump on it
when the rain came because it didn't it didn't come to the 11th hour. But we were able to have
we had all our infrastructure, all our machinery ready to go. The last drought actually, that's another big thing.
We invested heavily in. We identified some of our weaknesses as being our storage, on farm storage,
we put up for the 1800 tonne silos. We increased our shed capacity to, you know, machinery
just getting and second hand machinery. It was spinning. Well, it wasn't during the drought. We we invested in and some second hand machinery then.
But it's, you know, it's so expensive. And to have it sitting out in the sun, you know.
Yeah. Just, just getting on top of all that infrastructure upgrades and, making sure that everything was, was ready to go
because we really the last four years had been pretty manic. We haven't had a second to scratch ourselves.
Really. You know, just capitalizing. We've had a lot, quite a few years of double cropping,
which is not we don't necessarily happen every year, but you want to make the most of it when you can.
Because it's, you know, who knows when the next drought around the corner is for us?
Certainly we saw that in the South. I've heard people say that it was it was worse in the 2019,
2020 drought, which, yeah, that's that's huge. And.
Yeah. And I suppose. Yeah. And we and we also we identified, you know, you can't do it all at once in a course
in a drought. You do want to minimize your costs, but then you've got to weigh up,
you know, where you're going to get your biggest bang for your buck. You know, we we also had a wish list where we,
you know, once we've done a fair few years with, with bags, we were able we've earned the right to invest in, in,
you know, silos and, and we ended up this is last year investing
in, in a second hand hit off that was on our wish list this last season.
You know, with, with the costs getting up to over $750 an hour for contractors, you know, that those those last year
we had a lot of crop down and it was it was really, really expensive. So we've sort of we've got that's paid
dividends with this year with good, harvesting conditions. Although we did have run last night.
But yeah, it's and yeah, just identifying where those,
where you want to spend the money, whether it's in fertilizer or, yeah.
Doing all your soil testing and those sorts of things, having that all in order and up to speed that, that, that moisture retention
with the stubble management and knowing your rotation and you plan and getting those residuals down early one year we will be disorganized.
And the fellow sprays that we did, but we're ridiculous. It really is a huge saving
being organized and and timing obviously. That's another example of the rainfall.
You can't control the timing of the rainfall. We managed to get away with it. Before where we had some of our best yields ever
and least on our lessor country, a lot of soils,
which, you know, we took a risk planting because you can't hold the profile there, but, yeah, we, we were able to get over
six tonnes to the hectare, and it's it's, that that was a record on that, that sort of country.
And that was just all that to good management was the, the really controlling
those weeds over summer and stubble and doing, doing everything that we could, could possibly do in terms of what we could control.
Yeah. Wow, Jen. Thank you. That, is an awesome overview
I suppose that in the farming game they say what is the definition of luck in its prior preparation.
Makes opportunity acres lock so that that little I suppose. Yeah.
Nugget of knowledge where you've talked about how things worked out this year sounds like. Yeah. You had it on the money.
Really, really good to hear Jen being, I suppose, having a foot in the south and the north.
You you're a very good candidate. And so, so is everybody on these panelists tonight.
To talk about, I suppose, the different sort of cropping systems, but being in the North and the varying soil types, these this will change.
Obviously we've varying soil types for Jen, when the soil moisture is quite is isn't quite high enough.
How do you make the call to plant or not. And we talk about obviously the bucket being full, being the soil profile
and the water profile in the soil being really full or being really low. And so when it's really low and, and there isn't, you know, water
available to plant that, that makes a decision easy to not do it. And obviously when it's high it makes it very easy to do it.
So that middle ground is really tricky. Jen, can you just walk us through what you guys do?
Yeah, I think I did allude to it a little bit. We did with that last answer, but, yeah, I mean, today I was
this year was actually a classic example of all of that. But I think having that real intimate knowledge of your soil types,
you know, that order of, you know, whether you plant which, which section of your property first and knowing that,
you know, some might seal off and, and some hold some moisture better.
If you get rain and whether you go shallow or deep, it's a constant juggle and, and we've got agronomists that we've got, we've got a great team
that's, been with us for a few years now, and every season seems to be different.
But yeah, I think you do. And you gotta, you gotta you gotta back yourself and take risks.
Where in where in agriculture. But also knowing, you know,
only you know how much, how much risk you can take. Yeah, I think I think knowing the big thing, I've seen some
desperate decisions being made for desperate outcomes. I think you have to know your risk. Probably.
We are an agent. And, you know, we take we actually take. I'm not. I don't actually gamble that.
I is a huge, huge risk really. But it's calculated and, you know, just having that
intimate knowledge of it. Your people and what you
what, what you're working with. And only you can sort of make that, that call.
But what if so that, that, Jen. Yeah. You know.
Yeah. You don't know that, right? I mean, yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, you we,
we were held off, planting because the profile wasn't, wasn't, full, and we just thought, no way.
In the course, the neighbor that went ahead, you know, they they got a freak storm, and you know, that they,
they, they've, they've won on that one. And, you know, and then we've had other instances where we've had like,
we we got wiped out by hail and, draw a line cut in one year. We got the insurance and then pounce on, on the, on a mung
bean crop, which was a short one and then went straight into Bali. So you sort of take the wins when you get them.
And you, you, you just learn from. You learn. You learn every, every time.
But I don't think you can be afraid to have a crack that within, within reason. Yeah, exactly. Jen.
Thank you. Jen, we I suppose all the weather
based forecasting tools and ag technology, there's a lot of things that flood the market, in terms of, you know, and David
and that is and, you know, probes in all of the above, what I suppose are
a few that you like to use that you find really helpful in making decisions.
Yeah. Well, we use we use ag world. Have found the Navy are really helpful with yield estimates in conjunction
with on the ground for insurance and planning, harvest logistics and, and, yeah, the, the moisture probe.
We're part of this, farming group down here, MFS Monaro farming systems,
and they actually have soil moisture probes located all over the Monaro. And it's really useful tool for passive budgeting.
But of course all the irrigators up north have one in every paddock. And you know, in,
in the individual fields I should say, we've got a weather station, I've got the goanna thing app on my sign, which I look up.
Yeah. But one with the last 4G upgrade, which have an upgrade it. But, that's annoying me on it anyway.
But yeah, I think there is so much to see. Yeah. Yeah, they're they're really they're great tool.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you Jen I suppose I'll get to what are the top three actions that you've
taken that have created drought resilience in your farming operation? And I suppose using the, the dreaded 2019 drought, none of us forget it.
We've all got PTSD. I suppose that there could be some, some top actions that have come out,
even if it's true. Yeah. What what stands out to you? Yeah.
Yeah. Number one, sort of the, the planning, and involving all UK people said up to speed with the thought process and, and I always value that.
I mean obviously my thing by several thousand kilometers away. They're the ones doing it. So the I always value their contribution and and more often
than not I'm getting phone calls now when we're they're initiating. I thinking we should do x, y, z because of this.
You know, if it's making their life more efficient or, Yeah, easier.
I'm all for it. So that leads into the second, point of, you know, empowering your people.
And, and, and that also plays into the third one with keeping in form and getting out
and about and talking to other farmers that this MFS group down. He's really proactive.
And it it's sort of a combination of,
graziers and and cropping. So that's, that's been good thing from a mixed farming operation.
You know, I always I mean, we don't have any shape up north, but, you know, you always pick up and learn different things and different industries
and, yeah, I so attending Field Days is getting out, very important.
So I think that was, yeah. And, and going from one end of the state to the other, you know, in my situation
and I go via of my brother in law and sister Nariman, they're always pushing boundaries, doing things differently.
So, that's that's. Yes. Getting, that, that peer to peer learning really is important.
For sure. Thanks, Jen. Yeah, yeah. And yeah I did the a day pay the Bravo aid a a yes.
The endure.
All right as well because it got you thinking about the future because you do get really stuck in a rut.
Just just thinking of the now, especially if you're constantly having to feed livestock every day, day in, day out.
Yeah, like, but Groundhog Day for sure. For sure. Jen. Thank you.
I will run on to some personal questions during long dry stretches.
What helps what helps to you to keep turning up each day?
There any small routines or habits that have helped you stay motivated during a really hard time?
Having three kids that was, having to manage them and being part of another family operations,
being part of the two family operations has has been insightful.
It's. Yeah. There's no downtime. That's that's yeah, it's it's constant.
So, but I mean, certainly, exercise is always been a big, big thing.
Yeah, exercise is big and talking. I've got three sisters and one's in H.R.
One's in finance and the other one's on a farm. So. Yeah, talking's always good.
I'm good at that. Yeah. No. It's important. Thank you. Thank you very much.
What, what is the process for involving your team, family or advisors in your draft decision making?
How do you make sure that decisions are collectively understood and executable?
Well, I mean, it's just it's just sort of business as usual whether you're in a job or not.
You know, we have our weekly meeting and then we have our strategy, which we're meant to do every quarter.
But that's still a work in process. But it's better than nothing. And I've just engaged someone to give me a hand with some reports
which some other things which, you know, I've sort of will be, a one off pick.
Get us, a leg up, to sort of started benchmarking, but.
Yeah, it's it's, yeah, it's a, it's, it's a good thing to do, but you know.
Yeah, there's only so many things you can get done. There's sure, sure. For sure.
Knowing when to outsource is really important for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that that poses a really good point, Jen.
God forbid when you think about going into another drought in the future, what would you change
and how in how you manage your own wellbeing to avoid burnout or fatigue? I'm sorry,
it kind of sounds the same as something you've answered before, but yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, I think having been through a few droughts
now, you do get more confident with the decision making process.
And you learn that, you know, there are things, beyond your control and whether you stress or not
or whether you have a meltdown or not, it doesn't really change anything. So it's best to save your energy.
And, you know, I think letting go of that, this is for the females, the mother taught
guilt healing where you suppose you can't be everywhere and do everything and be everything for everyone at all at once?
So learning to prioritize better and sort of knowing what's important, you know, sometimes it.
Yeah, yeah, the, the whole family gets shafted. But then, yeah, that's, you know,
there's the, the, the important ones. Yeah. For sure. Jen. Thank you.
Thank you very much for for your answers and your, Yeah. Your participation.
Once again, everybody, if you could please hold off your questions and pop them in the Q&A for Jen,
and we will answer, at the rounding out of the webinar. Thank you again, Jen.
Now welcome John Stephenson. Last lucky last.
So John, give us a bit more information about you. John has a very extensive background in cropping in
both the north and the southern parts of New South Wales. So, John, can you tell us a bit more about your your career?
I suppose in working at Warakirri and provide an overview of your drought
management strategies that I'm sure have served you for many years.
Thanks, Kate. And, thanks Dave and Jen. Yeah. So John Stephenson.
Yeah, I've been with, Warakirri cropping since, business was set up in, in, early 1997.
Yes. As Kate said in the introduction of I've done a bit of time around a, up at Dalby, for a couple of years and,
then 20 years living next door to David, at Lochart and, and last four years, I've been the regional manager for the Southern region.
So the Warakirri, cropping business, is around 150,000 arable hectares.
We have a major presence in WA, a southern region, which I look after.
And, and then the northern region. So we also have country abundant below, Croppa Creek and all we that's our northern, northern farms and, and
yeah, we really are an investor first business, which we have to be if we're not investor, investor first, our investor will take the money elsewhere.
It doesn't matter whether it's a drought or a good year, we still expect it to provide returns. Yeah. Yeah.
100% increase. Is the Australian rest super business, which is the Retail Employees Super Trust.
Yeah, they've been with us, since the beginning. And we have the only agricultural investment that they have as a business.
Yeah, we are a bit of a, yeah, a bit of a highlight for them because, we're probably
one of the only sustainable, businesses that they have that have a focus on, you know, something that they can actually see, feel and touch.
And we are the only business that employs people. The rest superfine, which is pretty amazing for a business.
That's right. Super fund is over $1.2 billion. So it's a it's a big deal.
Yeah. So it's I've been through quite a few droughts with the business. Yeah. The early 2000 and the late 20 tens,
had some fairly big shocks through there. Probably learned enough to make it up the next time one comes along,
like everybody does in farming. I didn't put any money on any horses today in the cup, because I think we do
enough gambling every day, but, Yeah, it's, Yeah, a lot. Lots of things we've learned.
But some really important things, for our business, the main ones been in graphic diversity.
So we've, we've invested in farms that don't have a link, when, when we have a climate disaster in one region.
That we have a, so sort of uncorrelated regions. So if you look at the southern region compared to the Esperance zone
in, in western Australia, very, correlated, like it's very unusual for there to be a drought in those two regions same time.
We used to be an East Coast only business and a few El Nino is really beat us badly.
As a as a farming business, I cost us a lot of money because we all had a drought in the same year.
That's not something that everyone can do. But even within your own region, even on a micro-scale, geographic,
geographic diversity can provide a lot of upside and a lot of resilience, because storm rains will come through different patches at different times.
It might be easy to manage one big block in one place, but often in a in a time of drought, the whole place is in drought,
whereas you've got that bit of a spread, often you'll get some rain on one part of the farm that you'll miss on others.
So it's a bit swings and roundabouts? Yeah. Crop diversity has been a big focus of AZ for a long time.
You know, I've seen a lot of, corporate enterprises chase dollars, chase profits.
As far as chasing tubular crops, it might be just white can all the way canola.
And, it doesn't take many years for that system to fall over. Not only from a weight management point of view, but cost of production.
And when you stop driving, high cost of production, your resilience in a drought drops even further.
So we want to be building background nitrogen through pulse in our rotation.
Yeah. We want to try and maintain ground cover. Grant covers massively important for for drought resilience.
And then we as everybody's got we've got a cost control challenge, but nothing's getting cheaper.
Yeah. And that hurts a lot more in a poor production year because, you,
prices have risen much, but crop inputs certainly have.
Thank you. John. I, I love the hedging your bets and making a plan to change a plan
that is studies, farming and agriculture. John, how do you use financial analysis
to inform decision making both before and during droughts?
What are the key financial measures that producers should understand before making decisions around
whether or not to plant or, you know, whatever the decision may be. But obviously this is in relation to cropping.
Yeah. So so, we're probably very lucky as a business to have such intimate understanding of, a return on investment or return on asset managed,
because it is how we're assessed by the investor. I wish every farmer, had the,
the capacity and the insights that that we have in our business because from way back what we start doing
it budgets for the next. Yeah. Well, we've already got our budgets set now for next year.
A lot of our budgets revolve around, Yeah. Like, we we've pre-sold grain.
Yeah. Up to 18 months to a year in advance. We understand where crop margins, going to be.
And our return on investment from, from every paddock, and every crop thought so we make a lot of decisions around where we go based on that,
while trying to keep a pretty resilient rotation. We we don't chase rainbows much, but we do have
a very strong understanding of which of the right crop tops, in each region that it can give us the returns we need.
And, you know, there are ten, ten weather day cycles every year. We are going to get it this all once somewhere every year.
We got to get a this ten somewhere every year. Yeah. It's all around.
Just, just making sure we're understanding from the start. What triggers we need to pull at what times of the year
to, to minimize loss if we're heading that direction. Yeah.
Thank you. John. What are the top three actions that have been taken
that have created drought resilience in your time with the company?
Yeah. Like I already said, the geographic geographic diversity is. Yeah. You want we've sold quite a few farms and and invested elsewhere.
But that's, that's a pretty big thing. Like, that's, that's something that not everybody would have an appetite for.
But it certainly has assisted us. I hate so Lily Mueller action has been a huge one for us.
In, in building resilience. So addressing, sort constraints that help us increase the size of this whole water bucket.
So we've had a pretty extensive, gypsum program on a lot of our Sodiq or heavier, heavier paddocks, and blocks, and certainly done a lot with liming,
because if we can, if we can increase, soil root side and the depth of root zone,
we're obviously increasing the capacity to source water from deeper in the soil profile and to store more water deeper.
So that's been a huge focus and has provided some amazing returns, like where we've, been doing, deep ripping in the mallee.
We've essentially pushed our lentil yields, up by one night to come to the, the which in a crop that sometimes with $900 a tonne is huge.
So that's that's been a big, yeah, a big strategy of ours to help with that resilience.
And then also, you know, getting the capacity to procure inputs when they well priced as well.
So building chemical storage and fertilizer storage so that that we can actually capture benefit when we see it.
And yeah, it's all it's all work through on a financial analysis, the cost of carrying everything else.
But you know, we've had years, we've had good years where we haven't been able to get enough fertilizer and certainly been very, very expensive.
So yeah, they've they've burned it badly because you whilst we've got to manage for droughts, but it's also going to make sure we capture upside in good years
because there's no point just averaging in the good year. Yeah. Because you haven't fed the crop well enough.
So you've got to, you've got to take the highs with my camp as well as manage the lows when you've got them in front of you.
Yeah, John, very, very good points and advice there, John, for, for the listeners.
Now and in the future, I suppose top tips around management and catch ups.
Like, I know there are a lot of fund managers within the company. How often are they meeting up to make budgeting and, and farming decisions?
Is it is it weekly? You know what what sort of your your top tip on on advice for for farmers around that.
Yeah. We've got 11 farm managers and we've got 110, full time staff on farm and probably 30, in support.
We, we generally try and get a farm managers together face to face, twice a year, we'll get the whole business together.
Probably a by annual basis. And in the regions we try and get together twice a year with the
all the farm teams, together twice a year. We make our teams, monthly as as managers.
And, and I meet with my farm managers weekly, either in person or on teams as well, just to keep a check on, on production, scenarios
where we're going marketing scenarios and make sure it's, it's a big business.
You know, we we're producing close to half a million tonnes of grinding year. And when things start going the wrong direction,
yeah, it can make a very big difference. So we're just going to keep our finger on the pulse, but also support, managers
in the decisions that they've been forced to make because of what the environment's, putting in front of them.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. John, my next question.
How have I. So when I say the company, you, John,
manage mental health in the teams at or carry over time. And how has this changed.
Some people might have the opinion that a corporate run farm doesn't have the added stress that a family.
One does, but I probably would beg to differ, given all the the number crunching pressures that that you have.
So yeah, I was just wondering if you could shed some light on how you how you manage that with your farm managers
and the decisions that they have to make? Yeah, it certainly can be a pressure cooker for our farm teams
because there's a lot of people looking at their performance, a lot of people expecting things from them.
And sometimes it's out of their control, whatever's happening and, you know, I can't say we've always been perfect as a business at managing mental health.
But we did have a bit of a strategic review back in 2016.
And, we really did focus on looking after people is our number one priority. We always had, an enterprise assist,
employers employee assistance program, and I pay in the background available to all our staff and families,
which was a 24/7 assistance line that could call for personal financial, mental health, wellbeing.
Yeah, lots and lots of, even exercise based programs, things like that. It was very impersonal and, and our first strategic review in 2018,
we made the decision to, report to a point in, in, I think in six regions, we've actually put on a, a full time,
rural psychologist who actually comes around farms 2 to 3 times a year, spend some time with farm teams, and they just
they just have that personal relationship and they can farm things whenever they need to be.
It's a really important, place to keep people. Well, we have lost a few people who didn't reach out,
who really did get caught, in the system. And it's pretty sad, the very capable people that just didn't
didn't know when to ask for help, a way to get it. So we've, Yeah, we've certainly, invested heavily in trying to try to look after
people and that's, dovetailed in very well with the new psychosocial risk laws that that are presented to employers now.
And that's a really important piece, for people to understand, but that we are responsible for, for people's wellbeing on farm
and to make sure that you're in a respectful and a fair workplace and, that, you know, when, when the pressure is
on, we've got somewhere for them to, to reach out to get some help.
Thank you. John, I will now go on to some more personal based questions.
Based on your experience, what advice would you give to other producers about balancing the practical demands of managing a farm
through drought, whilst looking after your own mental wellbeing? I think I think that understanding for me
was that you actually can't manage what you can't control. But it took me a while. All this.
Yeah. When I was, I started managing farms when I was 27, I was bulletproof,
and that was going to fix every problem that we came across. But when the environment doesn't give you moisture,
there's not much you can do about it. And and one of the challenges that we do face in the southern region
is that by the end of June, 80% of our, annual costs are already gone. They're already in the ground.
It's it's very hard pressed to to get that cost control sorted. After June and you don't really know you're
in a drought where with a dominant rainfall region, you're not really know you're in a drought until you start getting into August.
So, you know, yeah, you've got to, yeah. Got to give people the space to say, hey, you know, you've done your best.
You've set things up for success. We haven't done it, but, you know, it's out of your control now.
So, so understanding that things are out of your control is very important.
Thank you. Thank you John. Really, really good points.
What's one lesson the drought has taught you that you now apply in every day for management,
even when it's a good season? Yeah. Okay. Go on with, what I've Jan already said like, cavalry's king.
Like, if we can, if we can keep, resilient ground cover and system.
Yeah, it buffers a lot of, environmental variables, but. But heat or rain or to aim too much. Right?
It can. It can give you a really good. Yeah. A really good bit of protection.
Yeah. The soil is precious. We all know it's precious. Yeah.
Keep on top of Wade's. Keep your ground cover sorted. And, and a lot of, things that look after themselves.
Thank you. John, we have time for one more question. This is another one that sort of made the rounds
in, in in other ways and shapes and forms, but maintaining focusing on long term goals
both, you know, obviously farming and financial how do you keep that momentum in the thick of survival mode within yourself and,
and the the fund managers that you are championing?
Yeah. I guess it's it's the long term focus of farming. Yes. But we we've been around for 30 years.
Next year we want to be around for another 30 years. It's, it's the understanding
that, you know, a lot of things you've invested this year, they may not come to fruition,
but they're actually going to add value to you next to you as well. And you think of the nitrogen banking story and nutrition banking, you know,
you haven't wasted money. You know, you might have some savings next to you based on what you've done this year.
So don't beat yourself up about it. Yep. Very good advice, John.
Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to all the panelists for sharing your insights with us
tonight on the webinar. It's it's my one of my biggest sayings is that you can't sell a secret and peer
to peer learning is, is is the best way to to keep lifting that that bottom line and and improving your FA management,
whether that be you know, it doesn't have to just be for drought. It it can be for everything.
So thank you all again. We now have a few minutes for some questions. So if you haven't already, please place your questions in the Q&A function.
Thank you for changing this slide and we will get into the Q&A function.
Just give me one moment, David. This one is for you. Being a mix farmer with a variety of crops, do you also run any stock
to utilize the stubble that you retain as a food source over some of
okay. Yeah. And I simply know we don't, grant covers really important for us. So, no, we don't run any other other livestock.
On on our cropping paddocks. That's fine. Thank you. David Chen, this question is next question is for you.
You mentioned, update and upgrade with your infrastructure and machinery
to increase production and efficiency, but where where do you place
the importance of stock and domestic water supply during dry times to achieve this?
Yeah. Look, you know, if you don't have water, that's that's the, big thing with livestock, but,
we yeah, it goes back to your wish list and, biggest bang for your buck.
If we've, we've certainly put in more domestic water supply. We did some that just two years ago, but we also,
where we set it up so the spray we can can get access
to that watering point for, to sell it for spraying as well.
But yeah, I mean, I heard in the South that was actually probably the biggest thing for people running out of water.
We're very, very fortunate. Fortunate up on the Moree district, having being on an artesian basin.
We don't face those challenges, and that's certainly a massive one. So it may be a very, very big priority for your operation.
So depend depends depends on your operation really and the value, you know your livestock versus you you cropping enterprise.
What's making money. You know this at the moment you're looking at the cropping enterprise.
With the decrease in grain prices, that, you know, and then bread, mate,
value the dollars per kilo for Red Knight. Certainly.
Changing their dynamics there. So being a mix farm, whether you put a little bit more weight behind it, red meat, enterprises and black coffee cropping,
there is talk around that, but, certainly everything's cyclical.
So, yeah, if that answers the question, hopefully.
Thanks, Jen. I think that is sufficient for sure. Thank you. Hi, John. We have a question for you.
Given the importance of soil amelioration on your properties, what sources of information or advice would you recommend to cropping producers
looking to overcome soil constraints in their own cropping enterprise?
Right? Question. Look, we're very strong on, on, our independent agronomy teams that that support us,
the big drivers of vessel amelioration programs throughout the, throughout the whole business, but is certainly yeah.
As Jen said earlier, like attending field days and stuff has been a massive source of, inspiration and encouragement in, in what we do on earth.
So let me or action. Yeah. Getting out about traveling to different regions like we've learned
a lot from the peninsula that we now do in the Victorian Mallee. We've learned a lot, from the Victorian mallee
that we now do in Meriden in Western Australia. So it's it's making sure you keep your eyes and ears open to opportunities,
and, and problems that are being overcome in areas that may be similar to yours or might be different to yours, but
the solution may work for your soils as well. But yeah, there's certainly, certainly some very clear chemical constraints
that we can identify easily through soil testing. But it's just knowing knowing where to look and, and knowing what to look for.
Thank you. That that is, that is very good a good answer and very good point.
John, I have another question for you. This is from Martin. John, I love the way that you prioritize groundcover to conserve soil moisture.
You mentioned that you used your take, lamb trading to utilize the value of summer stables.
Could you please explain further what drought relevant value to get from these?
Look at our lamb trading is probably more focused on, grazing animals. So we, we run, grazing mixes, rather than, rather than Longfellow.
And, yeah. So, so most of our livestock is, is based off on that grazing,
which, mixes the, Yeah, we do utilize them.
Thrace stables. And we're lucky that, Riverina Farm's a 100% chaff deck.
On their head is which provide really good, nutrition trials for, for sheep.
So that actually tend to overgrazed stubble. I tend to just stay on the wheel tracks and the like the, the chaff that lawns.
That's been a massive win and and a real, boost for, mass management as well, because any grain that does get lost over
later is in those, in those chaff that trials. And the sheep just vacuum it up.
So we have been getting some pretty good growth rates in the stables, but we're really only losing that to accumulate numbers
to go on to grazing minerals once I, once I get some feed in March.
Amazing. Thank you, thank you. And thank you again. To all our panelists.
That concludes our Q&A session. You say the feedback, form up on the screen.
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As I said again it helps us plan new events and helps us deliver content that you would like to see in the future.
I would also like to remind everyone, next week's webinar in this series
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But thank you all again for joining us tonight. And thank you for our New South Wales panelists.
It's it's been, really great to hear all all of your tips and tricks and lessons learned, and it's greatly appreciated.
Thank you.