Rotational grazing in central Australia

Mt Riddock Station

I visited Steve Cadzow with CLMA’s Camilla Osborn in November 2012 to discuss innovative practices in central Australia. Steve talked about rotational grazing, which he does on 2% of Mt Riddock Station. It was interesting to hear how it can improve groundcover.

‘When we started rotational grazing the buffel tussocks weren’t touching. Now it’s nearly a carpet and it responds quickly to rainfall. It’s unreal. It’s gone from struggling with 50 head to having 1100 steers through it.

‘We’ve got eight paddocks, four are about 1000ha (10km²) each and the other four range from 400-800ha. There is a central water point for both sets of four with a trap in and trap out, so when we move them after 3-4 weeks we close one out-trap and open another. The cattle only move about 2.5km from water and in one trial paddock there are areas they don’t get too because it’s too far away.

‘You can over capitalise and make too much work for yourself like shifting troughs. If you’ve got good infrastructure you don’t have to go back, it’s just maintenance.

‘We had two rotations last year and it still carried a wildfire. The grass is right to the trough fence. The top paddocks had a lot of clay pan, but with all the cattle movement it’s all grass now. It’s been interesting.

‘We’ve got more grass now compared to 20 years ago and it seems to be getting better and better. That’s native and buffel. Where buffel has gone into gullies the gully has filled in. It’s just all grass. The velocity has been taken out of the water flow. Instead of having huge torrents some of the creeks didn’t even flow in the recent rains. That was after a fire, so the soil structure must be that much better.

‘Buffel has got its disadvantages but I believe it has more advantages. You get a lot of feed but if it’s not grazed it ends up rank and stalky and needs a burn. They reckon if you graze it and open up the canopy your natives will come back, but I think the buffel would win out in the sandy soil with its big root system. We certainly wouldn’t want to get rid of all our native grass because it can fatten cattle really quick.’