A Look Inside a Changing Dairy System: Improving Soil, Pasture & Productivity

Join GippsDairy and South Gippsland Landcare Network for a field day to launch our South Gippsland Dairy Resilience Project. The day is hosted by Waratah Bay dairy farmers Stuart Tracy and family, with multispecies specialist Jade Killoran.

Stuart will share his experience of reworking how the farm manages its soil, pasture and inputs and seen major benefits.

The Tracy family run a 600-cow dairy is on 700 acres adjacent to Waratah Bay, and have been farming there since 1980.

And if you've driven past the Tracy dairy farm lately, you might have noticed something different growing in the paddocks - pasture mixes of chicory, clover, plantain, buckwheat, sunflowers and more. After dealing with pastures that needed constant resowing, ongoing animal health issues, and the squeeze of rising input costs, Stuart and his family started looking for a different way forward. A few years ago, they started trialling multispecies pastures, longer grazing rotations, and biological fertilisers, with a demonstration trial set up to monitor the results. The multispecies pasture has been producing significantly more feed, at a lower cost, with higher quality than the ryegrass pasture, and soil health has improved.

The day will start nearby at Sandy Point Community Centre, and following a free lunch, we'll visit the farm. During the day we'll

• hear from Stu Tracy about why they've made changes to their farming methods, the setbacks and what's next

• learn about the results of the previous demo site on the farm, and what the new demo site is looking at

• hear from Jade Killoran (Healthy Farming Systems) about the benefits of trialling multispecies pastures and the science behind the results

• walk the paddocks and see the trial plots firsthand

The day will also kick off the new Dairy Resilience project which dairy farmers are invited to join by submitting an EOI: https://forms.gle/qB92xFZYgLHTRgxFA

For more info please email cassie@sgln.net.au, or 0448 739 559.

Lunch and refreshments provided.

Please notify us of any dietary requirements.

As this is a joint event with GippsDairy, participant info will be shared with GippsDairy.

The Dairy Resilience Project is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program under the Natural Heritage Trust. This project is proudly supported by South Gippsland Landcare Network and Soils for Life.