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BROADACRE CROPPING
Ferndale - mixed cropping & grazing
Cliff Kelly and his son Stuart run a mixed livestock and cropping operation on “Ferndale” near Newbridge in the Central Tablelands. They have been using ANL’s Nitrohumus® compost on their grazing oats paddocks for a number of years and plan to keep on using it. “The oats look robust and really respond to the Nitrohumus. We would prefer to use more organic fertilizers in preference to synthetic where possible, or a combination of organic and synthetic fertilizers. Nile oats sown in February 2013 was two feet high at six weeks. The lambs we finish on the oats just do well and seem to be a lot more consistent.”
An added pleasant surprise came at harvest time. Mr Kelly locked the oats up after grazing to let it recover so that he can obtain some seed for the next years sowing. When the grader came to clean the seed he usually gets a bag weight of 38 to 40kgs of graded oats, and you have a very full bag at 40kgs. This year despite the very dry finish the grader operator was consistently getting bag weights up to 45kg. And you could see the seeds were just plump, said Cliff.
The pleasing aspect for the Kellys’ was the continued benefit from the Nitrohumus®. According to Mr Kelly, “a four year old pasture responded very well to Nitrohumus, producing some of the heaviest cross-bred lambs at marking time that we have ever had.
The economics of using Nitrohumus® is also a factor for Cliff, as they can spread it themselves and he also liked the fact that Nitrohumus® has a liming effect so he didn’t …’ have to spend more time and money to control my pH levels.’ “Nitrohumus® compares extremely well considering the total benefit.”