Less soil is being lost to creeks and rivers on the southern Tablelands thanks to changed grazing practices and to solutions like rock chutes for eroded gullies.

Seven farming families have been working with not-for-profit environmental organisation Terrain NRM and grazing and soil health specialists for the last seven years on changes that range from dividing paddocks up and rotating cattle differently to building up vegetation coverage where rock chutes and bund walls have been built to stop gullies from eroding any further.

Graziers say the results include better pastures

“What we’re seeing is more feed and better-quality feed,” Woodleigh Station’s Pete Waddell says. “We’ve fenced to cut paddocks up and we’re now running bigger numbers of cattle on smaller areas rather than the reverse, which is the traditional approach. I’ve seen a marked improvement in the condition of country.’’

Preventing 4,500 tonnes of fine sediment from reaching the Reef annually

Terrain NRM’s Duncan Buckle says the combined impact of 10 erosion-control structures, and grazing management changes across six cattle stations, is keeping thousands of tonnes of soil on the land each wet season and stopping an estimated 4,500 tonnes of the really fine soil particles (the equivalent of 225 semi-trailer loads) from becoming sediment on the Great Barrier Reef each year.

“Fine-tuning grazing management practices and making the land more resilient has been a big part of these two projects,’’ he says.

“It’s the key to reducing erosion in the Herbert River catchment. We’ve been working with graziers to improve the health of grassland ecosystems and cattle, and to improve production.

Managing cattle to improve soil health

“We look at ways to manage cattle to promote soil health because improved soil health results in thicker, healthier, more nutritious pastures. And getting more roots in the soil means the soil can absorb water better and hold together better.”

Grazier Curtis Archer says changes on Glen Ruth Station are creating better pastures and making it easier to handle cattle and control weeds like lantana with fire.

Splitting paddocks for a three-paddock rotation system

“We’ve split paddocks in half and gone to a three-paddock rotation system in the river country and another three-paddock system to manage the creek flats,’’ he says.

“It’s making the cattle work the country better, rather than just sitting on creek flats and always hammering them. It’s giving paddocks a more even graze and we’ve seen the dominant species take over – good native grasses. We’ve got three times the volume of grass in these paddocks, which means we can add a few more cattle now. I think there will be more and more benefits over the years.

Join us in the Tarzali region for two grazing workshops with Dick Richardson on Tuesday 9 April and Wednesday 10 April…

Graziers from across the region are encouraged to come to these free events, which will focus on ways to optimise cattle and pasture performance.

Terrain NRM is bringing grazing guru Dick Richardson back to the region for these events – the first for those who haven’t been to one of his workshops before, or want a refresher, and the second for those who’ve been before and want to delve deeper.  We will be looking at everything from reading animal, dung and pasture condition to stock movement and assessing feed availability.

Dick Richardson is an internationally recognised leader in natural grazing principles to improve soil depth, water retention, biodiversity and animal production.

He has been helping graziers in our region for more than five years.

During the workshops, which will run from 9am to 3:30pm, there will also be plenty of time to ask questions, share experiences and ideas.

These events are part of our Upper Herbert Sediment Reduction Project, funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

The Herbert catchment is one of the top three contributors of fine sediment flowing to the reef. This project aims to reduce fine sediment loads entering the Great Barrier Reef lagoon from the Herbert River Basin, by targeting priority erosion hot spots and high-risk areas with a combination of construction works and agricultural extension support for farmers.

Register for a workshop, or find out more, by emailing Terrain NRM’s Duncan Buckle at duncan.buckle@terrain.org.au or calling Terrain NRM on (07) 4043 8000.

For those who haven’t been to a Dick Richardson workshop before, here are three short videos featuring Dick and focused on soil health in the grazing world.

Why is Soil Health Important?

How to Tell if your Soil and Pasture is Healthy

Using Grazing to Improve your Soil’s Health

A century-old cattle station is getting a revamp. Minnamoolka Station, at the headwaters of the Herbert and Burdekin rivers, is undergoing changes to improve cattle production, the land, and the water flowing to the Great Barrier Reef.

Landholders Margie Atkinson and Greg Jenkins say it is never too late for fresh ideas. They are 60 kilometres into a 70km fencing project that will make 62 paddocks out of the property’s existing 28 paddocks for a switch from set stocking to rotational grazing in smaller paddocks for shorter, more intense periods.

They are also in the midst of adding extra water points for cattle.

“We’re always interested in new ideas and better ways to manage the land and improve feed quality for our livestock,’’ Margie Atkinson said.

“Next year this land will have been in our family for 120 years and traditionally our family has always endeavoured to practice sustainable land management with set stocking.

“We are excited by the possibilities that we perceive as being offered by the Grazing Naturally method.”

Better ground cover and pastures

She and Greg are working with natural resource management organisations Terrain NRM and NQ Dry Tropics on projects that they hope will lead to better ground cover and pastures across about 29,000 hectares of land. They currently graze around 4000 head of beef cattle.

Margie said a free workshop with Grazing Naturally’s Dick Richardson, through Terrain NRM’s Upper Herbert Sediment Reduction Project, had been a catalyst for change. Dick has since spent time with them, again as part of the project, to assess grass condition and work on a solid plan for their property’s dry season, including forage budgeting and determining stocking rates.

Smaller paddocks and shorter more intense grazing periods

Creating smaller paddocks for rotational grazing will mean the cattle have shorter, more intense grazing periods in paddocks and the paddocks have variable rest periods – with the long-term aim of creating better ground cover and more diverse and nutritious pastures.

Margie says it will also help with other things: “As well as improved forage for cattle we are hoping to reduce the annual fuel load. Left to free-range, during the growing season the cattle generally concentrate on small areas and when the dry season comes fire can be a big issue in the areas that haven’t been grazed”.

She said the biggest challenge of the project is provision of adequate stock watering points. By the end of 2023 they will have installed 17 new waters, and they will increase this number as they can afford to.

“Grazing cattle in a large mob through smaller paddocks means there is a much higher daily demand on water points, so with help from NQ Dry Tropics we have put in a new bore and by the end of this year with assistance from Terrain NRM we will have installed another, to be able to pipe water to additional troughs.

Join us at Woodleigh Station for a grazing workshop with Dick Richardson on Wednesday 30 August…

Graziers from across the region are encouraged to come to this free event, which will focus on ways to optimise cattle and pasture performance.

Terrain NRM is bringing grazing guru Dick Richardson back to the region for this event.  We will be looking at animal, dung and pasture condition, stock movement, the use of supplements and incorporating fire in management practices.

Dick Richardson is an internationally recognised leader in natural grazing principles to improve soil depth, water retention, biodiversity and animal production.

He has been helping graziers in our region for more than five years.

During the workshops, which will run from 9am to 3:30pm, there will also be plenty of time to ask questions, share experiences and ideas.

The day is part of our Upper Herbert Sediment Reduction Project, funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

The Herbert catchment is one of the top three contributors of fine sediment flowing to the reef. This project aims to reduce fine sediment loads entering the Great Barrier Reef lagoon from the Herbert River Basin, by targeting priority erosion hot spots and high-risk areas with a combination of construction works and agricultural extension support for farmers.

Rainforest trees are the newest addition to beef producer David Andersen’s property, where a swag of changes is improving the land and productivity.

Two thousand trees were recently planted along stretches of streambank on the Malanda farm.

2000 trees planted to stabilise streambanks

“They’re in areas where cattle have been eroding the steep banks, some of them (banks) three to five metres high,’’ Dave says. “In big rain, the exposed topsoil just washes away.”

The Andersens have been working with natural resource management organisation Terrain NRM to reduce erosion by fencing off and revegetating waterways, as well as fine-tuning grazing management practices.

Smaller paddocks improving pastures

They began dividing paddocks when they first bought the land and, with help from Terrain NRM’s Upper Johnstone Integrated Project, they have recently created another three paddocks.

“By reducing the size of some of our larger paddocks, all of the paddock is more efficiently grazed down instead of just the sweet stuff,” David said.

Cattle rotation changes

“The cattle are then rotated around the farm allowing the tropical grasses and legumes a good recovery period. Whereas before there were big clumps of grass with underlying patches of dirt, the grass is now starting to spread and tighten up.”

Terrain’s Vanessa Drysdale said a combination of grazing management changes and tree-planting was chosen for the Andersen property as an effective solution to the erosion issues.

“On other properties there have been earthworks like Zuni bowls installed, which are then combined with revegetation work,’’ she said. “But we didn’t need the hard works on the Andersen property. Revegetation alone should do the trick for long-term repair on these streambanks. Tree root systems hold banks together and they slow water down in heavy rain events, reducing the chances of topsoil loss and of more erosion.”

The creation of a native fruit orchard, as part of the revegetation work, has been a bonus at the Andersen family’s property.

Rock chute a tool to improve land and Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is a long way from the Mt Garnet region – but the world’s largest collection of coral reefs is benefitting from work on cattle properties there to repair eroded gullies and keep topsoil on the land.

A 40-metre rock chute is the latest project. Built on Woodleigh Cattle Station with an accompanying 500 metres of bund walls, it is stopping the spread of a gully complex that’s now several hundred metres long.

Reducing sediment loads on the Reef

The structure is expected to save almost 200 tonnes of fine sediment from reaching the Great Barrier Reef each year and, just as importantly, prevent the loss of more productive land to erosion.

Terrain NRM is working with Woodleigh’s Waddell family as part of the Upper Herbert Sediment Reduction Project, funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

The rock chute is the first engineered structure for a project that’s heavily focused on grazing management practice changes. Woodleigh Cattle Station’s Kate Waddell says the combination is working well on her family’s property.

“Even with good grass cover and light stocking rates, some of our soil types erode easily during heavy rainfall so there has been quite a bit of erosion over the years,’’ she said.

“It’s important to keep our soil on the property – it’s our lifeblood.”

Slowing and channelling storm water

Terrain NRM’s Jen Mackenzie said the new rock chute was slowing water and channelling it into a nearby creek.

“This is an area with historical erosion that’s several hundred metres from a creek and getting worse over time,’’ she said. “The chute was built in the worst of a series of gully heads. When it rains, the bund walls now channel all the water into the chute, and on into a pre-existing channel to the creek.”

A new focus on the land underneath their cattle’s feet is racking up wins for Brahman breeders Peter and Mariah Chiesa.

The Kennedy Valley graziers have seen a major improvement in pastures since they began changing their grazing management practices six years ago, moving to smaller paddocks and grazing the land more intensely.

From 6 to 16 paddocks

“We had 130 hectares of cane, banana (and guinea grass) that was fenced into six paddocks – we’ve pushed it out to 16 paddocks averaging five to seven hectares with a solid 60 per cent of the pasture now being improved species with a heavy legume influence,’’ Peter said.

“It allows us to manage our feed a lot better, and to have our finger on the pulse when it comes to selling cattle at an optimum time.”

The Chiesa’s Kennedy property was showcased at a field day in the Tully region, hosted by the farmer-led group Lower Wet Tropics Soilcare and supported by Terrain NRM.

Peter said Terrain’s grazing management workshops, held in the Tableland and Ingham regions over the last couple of years, had helped him look at his management of grazing land from a different angle, building on the knowledge he and Mariah had gained over the years.

“New ways to run our country better”

“Breeding cattle is long-term project and learning how to manage the country is part of it,’’ the third-generation farmer said. “We’re always looking for ways to run our country better. I’m not a big fan of applying synthetic fertiliser so I’m interested in different approaches.

“We run all our cattle in one herd now. We have minimal inputs. With smaller paddocks, they always have fresh feed available. We move them regularly. In the wet season that can be every couple of days.

Rock chutes have been put through their paces on cattle properties in the Herbert River catchment – and they’ve been given the ‘thumbs-up’ as solutions to gully erosion and topsoil losses.

The first La Nina wet season sent floodwaters down chutes and through other rock structures that were built over the last three years on properties in the Mt Garnet and Innot Hot Springs area, and monitoring work was recently completed.

Terrain NRM project manager Jen Mackenzie said rainfall over the past five months had given the engineered structures a solid testing period.

Four rock chutes have been constructed on cattle stations, along with bund walls, and different rock structures were installed at tailings dams from historical mining ventures on cattle properties.

The annual monitoring also includes inspections of native grasses, planted at these sites as part of the projects.

“It’s all about improving the land for graziers, as well as the quality of water flowing through the Herbert catchment and out to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon,’’ Ms Mackenzie said.

Together, the four rock chutes will each year prevent an estimated 1,200 tonnes of sediment – the equivalent to 50 semi-trailer loads – from reaching the Great Barrier Reef.

Chutes range from 20 metres to 100 metres long.

The Mossman and Murray river catchments are on course to meet their reef water quality targets with a new $5.6 million investment announced by Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley.

‘Mobilising the Murray and Mossman’ will build on previous water quality initiatives supporting farmers with land management practice changes to reduce runoff of nutrients, sediment and pesticides. The new project will focus on helping sugarcane growers to minimise the loss of excess nutrients by matching fertiliser applications to crop requirements.

Stewart Christie, CEO at Terrain NRM, welcomed the additional investment and said the project was targeting win-win solutions for farming businesses and water quality.

“These catchments have already made really good progress towards the current catchment targets within Australia’s Reef 2050 Plan, with farmers adopting best management practices for water quality and implementing a variety of changes,” he said.

“This initiative is a boost to help reach targets, in both water quality and productivity.”

Funded by the Australian Government’s Reef Trust, the project is being delivered by Terrain NRM, Mossman Agricultural Services and Canegrowers Tully. Agricultural extension officers and agribusiness providers will work with cane farmers to identify factors inhibiting the uptake of fertiliser by plants.

Peter Lucy, Manager at Canegrowers Tully, said constraints included compacted soils, sandy soils, weeds and poor drainage.

“The more we can help farmers address these constraints to their crop yields, the more we can prevent excess fertiliser losses running off into waterways,” he said. “The solution is different for every farm so it’s important to provide one-on-one support to farmers to identify and address their individual crop constraints.

“The Tully Extension Network has been providing extension support to sugarcane growers for several years now and this project will help us to continue supporting growers to refine their land management practices.”

Graziers from Ravenshoe to Ingham are part of a new $3.2 million project to clean up the water flowing down the Herbert River and out to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon.

Terrain NRM will work with landholders changing their grazing management practices in a project focused on reducing the amount of fine sediment in the Herbert River catchment’s waterways.

Terrain’s Jen Mackenzie said the team would also repair major gully and streambank erosion on two properties through rock chutes and pile fields, and would support a number of graziers to fence off waterways and install off-stream watering systems for cattle.

The Upper Herbert Sediment Reduction Project is funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

“We are really looking forward to this – we’ll also be working with the Mulloon Institute for the first time, helping landholders to prevent further erosion on their land, and with visiting grazing and soil health specialists who already work successfully with landholders in this region,” Ms Mackenzie said.

The new project will complement a Herbert Gully and Grazing Program that has been running for the past three years, funded by the Australian Government and delivered by Terrain NRM. The project has led to reductions in sediment loads through gully erosion remediation work and changes to grazing management practices.

“These projects are benefitting the land, the Reef and graziers with their soil health and natural grazing practices focus,’’ Ms Mackenzie said. “The engineered works – from rock chutes and bund walls to whoay boys on roads – are significant for sediment reduction. But it’s the changes to the way we manage the land that will lead to long-term and ongoing improvements.

“The new Upper Herbert Sediment Reduction Project will build on the success of our existing project and expand our reach of support for landholders in the Herbert catchment.”