Peter Whip
Farms: Royston and Bandon Grove
Region: Longreach, western Queensland
Commodity: Beef cattle
Farming area: Royston—15,800 hectares; Bandon Grove—7300 hectares
Rainfall: 150–380 mm per year
Email: peter@prwagri.com.au
Phone: 07 4658 1512
I think most producers, ourselves included, try to gear their business to suit their climate. If climate change is going to affect us—and I think there’s enough evidence to suggest it is—one of the big things that will change will be the rainfall patterns. For western Queensland, the climate has been predicted to shift to bigger rainfall events with longer dry periods in between.
See what Peter has to say about:
- Farming in Longreach
- Breeding cattle for the climate and country
- The changing climate in western Queensland
- Using short- and long-term forecasts to make the most of the rain
- The risks of future climates—big rains and long dry periods
- Maintaining ground cover to manage bigger rainfall events and floodwaters
- Watering cattle more efficiently to reduce stress on pastures
Farming in Longreach
We started our beef cattle business at Bandon Grove back in 2000, just before the 8-year drought. Those first 8 years were pretty tough. We were lucky to come out of it in a position to be able to expand our business. We were fortunate enough to be able to buy Royston in May 2011; it is about 10 kilometres east of Bandon Grove.
Currently we are running 1000 breeders and aiming to wean around 800 to 1000 head each year. We grow the steers to about 400 kilograms at 18–20 months of age and then sell them on to feedlots.
Breeding cattle for the climate and country
Our cattle are a composite breed which started with a Brahman base. We started off with all sorts of cattle, buying in mobs that we thought we might be able to make money from. Over time, we have ended up with a pretty good composite with traits that suit our market, climate, environmental and business conditions.
We use Charolais bulls over our main breeders for growth, length and overall weight gain.
We are determined to avoid losses from calving difficulties, so even though we source low-birth-weight poll Charolais bulls from South Australia, we still keep a very close eye on birth weight. For this reason we join all our first-calf heifers to low-birth-weight Angus bulls sourced from Hazeldean in New South Wales.
While we want our steers to get to our target weight as quickly as possible, we don’t aim to grow huge-framed cows. We believe the optimum weight for our breeders is about 450–500 kilograms. Heavier breeders are inefficient, need more grass to maintain their body weight and so have less available energy to put into their calf (compared to a smaller breeder).
In drought conditions, these smaller cows tend to manage the tough conditions better than a big, heavy cow that needs a lot of feed to keep herself going.
Research is continuing but there is some evidence to suggest that—in general—smaller, more efficient cows also produce less methane. Methane is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
If we can breed a similar calf from a breeder which is smaller and eats less feed, then the greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of beef produced should be less.
The changing climate in western Queensland
Our recent winters have been quite mild, but 2011’s winter has been a real, old-fashioned winter. We have had frosts and a series of really cold days, with lows down to 0°C. People who have lived in this area a long time say that it’s what it used to be like in years gone by.
In summer, it gets pretty hot and steamy out here. Most of our rain falls over January, February and March.
Our average yearly rainfall is about 380 mm, but it varies. For instance, for 8 of the last 10 years since 2001, we were fighting a drought and our average yearly rainfall was less than 150 mm. 2011 has been great, and once again, it’s how older farmers remember this area before the drought.
Given that I moved to Longreach in 1987, it’s hard for me to say if this is all part of climate variability. But I’ve been told that the climate in the area does move in a 10-year cycle. For every 10 years, we probably have 1 or 2 really good years, 3 or 4 very ordinary years, and probably 2 or 3 really bad years.
Using short- and long-term forecasts to make the most of the rain
During winter we don’t really bother looking at the weather forecast, because we know it’s going to be fine and cold during this period. If we do get some rain, it’s a bonus; but it can often mean a loss of pasture quality. Winter rain often means a loss of protein in our dry feed.
We’ve got quite a range of different country types that respond differently to rain. We have some red country which responds quickly to rain, but dries out quickly, and we have really heavy downs country that takes a lot more rain before it benefits, but hangs on longer.
At the end of the wet season we do a feed budget to see how we will respond to the season to take best advantage of the available feed. We look to adjust cattle numbers to suit what feed we have after wet-season rain. We use a program of wet-season spelling and rotational grazing [shifting cattle through paddocks to improve pasture quality and then moving cattle on to give the paddock a rest].
Once it gets to October/November/December, when there is a much higher chance of getting rainfall, we start to focus on shifting cattle to prepare for our wet-season spelling program. This is the key time of the year for managing pasture growth. The Bureau of Meteorology’s 10-day forecasts are really helpful with planning our weeks so we can respond with forethought.
We’ve tried to use some long-range forecasts but we haven’t had a lot of success. I think it has a lot to do with the variability that the district—and even each property—experiences.
For example, a few years back, we were completely dry on this property, yet where we were leasing country 150 kilometres away, we had green feed.
When you’re talking to forecasters, they say it’s very hard to predict those sorts of occurrences.
They can show that an area’s going to be drier than normal or wetter than normal but sometimes local influences, such as topography, will cause one property to get 5 inches of rain and his neighbour will get 1 inch. Those ‘5 inches to 1’ can mean the difference between having really good feed and having none.
The risks of future climates—big rains and long dry periods
I think most producers, ourselves included, already try to gear their business to suit their climate using improved water supplies and better pasture management. If climate change is going to affect us—and I think there’s enough evidence to suggest it is—one of the big things that will change will be the rainfall patterns. For western Queensland, the climate has been predicted to shift to bigger rainfall events with longer dry periods in between.
History shows us that in western Queensland, these huge variations in rainfall patterns have been around for some time, and it certainly has been the story of the last 10 years. Parts of our country are regularly flooded from these sorts of rainfall events.
While you’re thinking how good it will be for your pastures and soil, these big rainfall events can often do significant damage if you don’t have proper ground cover in place. Water moves quickly over bare country and doesn’t soak in, but picks up speed and carries topsoil away.
Maintaining ground cover to manage bigger rainfall events and floodwaters
We aim to maintain ground cover by making sure cattle don’t overgraze our paddocks. The extra ground cover slows down any water moving across the land, allowing it to seep in. It also protects our soils from being washed away during rainfall events.
When we bought Royston, there were plenty of paddocks that were around 5000 acres. In the past, people might have put 150 cows in each of these paddocks and left them there all year. But now we cut those paddocks into 4 smaller paddocks. In one of these 1000-acre paddocks we will run 250 cows and spell the other 3 paddocks, moving the cattle around depending on the season and pasture growth.
This has two benefits.
First, the extra cows in the smaller paddocks will rough up a lot more of the soil. When the paddock floods during a rainfall event, this roughed-up soil will slow down the water, allowing the water to seep in, and stop the water from carrying away the topsoil.
Second, cattle normally target the softer, more palatable grasses, grazing them until those grasses die. Because more cattle are in a paddock for a shorter time, they tend to be not as picky and will more evenly graze on all grasses. That takes the pressure off the most palatable grasses. By then giving the paddock a spell, those grasses will come back stronger and thicken the ground cover.
Watering cattle more efficiently to reduce stress on pastures
You can’t really have a working rotational and spelling system unless you’ve got enough cattle watering points to do it.
By splitting the paddocks into 4 and building additional watering points, we are reducing the distance that cows need to walk to water. This reduces how much energy they lose walking, which means the cow has more energy to put into weight gain, milk production and reproduction. As well as these benefits, we are not overgrazing the country closest to water because there is much more even grazing pressure in the smaller paddocks.
There are some figures that say a cow uses about 2 megajoules of energy to walk 1 kilometre. Some of the paddocks on our new property are 8 kilometres from water, so that’s a lot of energy that a cow’s using just to walk between water and their pasture.
Our plans for the future include building more water points and reducing paddock size so that we can better manage our pastures. We also want to address some of the degradation issues on our new block.
Interview date: 20 August 2011
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