Territory Stories

Alice Springs Rural Review

Details:

Title

Alice Springs Rural Review

Creator

Northern Territory. Department of Resources

Collection

Alice Springs Rural Review; E-Journals; PublicationNT; Alice Springs Rural Review

Date

2010-12-01

Location

Alice Springs

Notes

Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).; This publication contains many links to external sites. These external sites may no longer be active.; Includes : Pastoral Market Update November 2010; Arid Zone Research Institute; AZRI, Alice Springs

Language

English

Subject

Agriculture; Alice Springs Region; Periodicals

Publisher name

Northern Territory Government

Place of publication

Alice Springs

Series

Alice Springs Rural Review

Volume

V 44 (9-12) December 2010

File type

application/pdf

ISSN

0813-9148

Use

Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

Copyright owner

Northern Territory Government

License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Parent handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/227332

Citation address

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/676011

Page content

ALICE SPRINGS RURAL REVIEW, Page 5 of 20 Figure 1: The impact of different stocking rates with or without spelling to improve land condition Table One: The impact of different stocking rates with or without spelling on liveweight gain (open woodland) 0.6 AE/ km (no spell) 170 30 1 AE/ km (no spell) 163 48 1 AE/ km (6mo spell every four summers) 163 41 1.5 AE/ km (no spell) 34 15 1.5 AE/ km (6mo spell every four summers) 158 60 Figure 1 explains the effects different stocking rates with or without spelling have on improving land condition. Table 1 describes the impact different stocking rates with or without spelling have on liveweight gain. The lowest stocking rate (0.6 AE/km) led to the fastest land condition recovery and gave the best live weight gain per head (i.e. a good land condition result and a quality beast to turn off). At a slightly higher stocking rate (1AE/ km), land condition recovered nearly as quickly as the lower stocking rate (0.6 AE/km), but only if the country was spelled for 6 months once every four summers. To run a slightly higher stocking rate with spelling led to better live weight gain per hectare compared to the lowest stocking rate. At the highest stocking rate (1.5 AE/km), a spelling regime led to the best live weight gains per hectare, but land condition took longer to recover and this option led to poor live weight gains in poor seasons. At the highest stocking rate with no spelling, land condition never recovered and also gave the poorest live weight gain outcomes. The feedback given at the second workshop was very worthwhile and the research team now needs to go back and make adjustments to their models to fine tune the results. These results, it is anticipated, will help to reveal which land management practice will yield the best results for land condition and bottom lines for central Australian cattle stations. A final report is being prepared from the second workshop, if you would like to receive a copy please contact Sally Leigo, 08 8951 8144 or sally.leigo@nt.gov.au. Dionne Walsh (08 8999 2178 or dionne.walsh@nt.gov.au ) and Sally Leigo are also available to answer any of your questions relating to this project.