Improving & building resilient pasture for better results, profits and healthier animals.
With weather conditions having been hotter and dryer for some time now, pasture growth has now taken a hit, and that extra supplement may well be a silver lining.
It’s in these conditions that the AgriSea Soil and Pasture program will really make a difference by building up resilience in the farming system and enabling pastures to “hold on” longer and then recover more quickly when conditions become more favourable. We see evidence of this from our many loyal customers.
One such Farm is in the Kimbolton Area where Trevor and Stephanie Rudman run their dry stock operation. The Rudman’s wanted to make some changes in their system to improve pasture growth, pasture health and improve profits.
As Stephanie puts it, “every season we have exceeded our weight targets, but his has always come at a cost. When we called Gavin in, we went through our soil tests with him, did a farm walk and when he gave us his recommendations, it all seemed to make sense.”
“We have followed his advice as we believe that if you always do the same thing, you will always get the same results and the performance of the property has been outstanding.
“Even the Neighbours have been driving past and commenting on the pasture improvements”.
Trevor and Stephanie embarked on a subsoiling program on the flat areas of their farm. The recommended program included the AgriSea Combo+ product which is AgriSea Soil and Pasture on a zeolite carrier to provide slow release nutrition to the root zone. This was blended with some more conventional, albeit very natural, fertiliser product.
Over the last two very wet winters (particularly the 2017 winter), nutrient deficits have become a real issue. Even now we are still seeing the effects of this with many farms exhibiting the old “Pasture Chicken Pox” (i.e. really pronounced dung and urine patches).
This is often the result of high N P K applications which in simple terms can shut down the natural ability for plants to cycle nutrients themselves, the way that nature intended.
There is no quick fix for soil that has been shut down, however a nutrient program based on improving soil and plant biology will go a long way to correcting this issue.
This is where biostimulants can really work for you by helping to improve soil structure and texture, increasing nutrient availability from the soil and ensuring that the pasture plant can actually uptake and utilise these nutrients, nutrients that you’ve already bought and paid for.