Samford Valley pasture land

Scientific tips

Like Humans animals need minerals to maximise vitamin intake.
Soil aeration will assist the health of your soil by promoting microbiotic growth and breaking up compacted soil to enhance air and water penetration.
Balancing soil is more than pH balancing, it is improving the cation exchange capacity (CEC) and balancing Ca/Mg/Ph to release the locked up minerals in the soil.
Plant growth removes carbon dioxide from the air and returns the carbon to the soil. It also replenishes oxygen in the air.
Grazing animals require a variety of minerals for their physical and mental well being.
Weed growth can indicate deficiency in trace elements, not available for pasture in the top soil.
Healthy pasture extracts Nitrogen from the atmosphere, eliminating the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.
Companion planting of nitrogen fixating plants in wooded areas and within your pasture increases nitrogen levels in your soils without the need for synthetic nitrogen based fertilisers.
Manure is full of nitrogen. Spreading fresh or composted manure is the natural and renewal way of returning Nitrogen and organic matter to the soil.
Organic matter is full of nutrients and minerals, so returning it to the soil after paddock topping is an important part of keeping your soil balanced.
Weeds can be your friends! They bring minerals from lower in the soil strata to the surface. When you top your weeds, these minerals are returned to the upper strata of the soil, which makes them available for pasture growth. When the weed dies, the deep root structure rots away providing natural aeration of the soil.
Synthetic NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) fertilisers put the natural balance of Ca/Mg/P out of balance and lock up minerals. They provide short term growth at the expense of long term health.
Bare dusty paddocks can contribute to animal ill-health e.g. equine colic, respiratory stress, eye infections etc.
Sustained use of synthetic fertilisers can rid your soil of important soil conditioning creatures such as earth worms and dung beetles.
Bare, dry, dusty and sour soils can foster the existence of animal parasites such as ticks and fleas.
Cation Exchange Capacity is the ability of the soil to attract and hold positively charged ions known as cations. Cations are formed by elements such as Zinc, Copper, Cobalt, Magnesium, Potassium and other trace elements. These are the available for pasture growth.
Plant nutrients exist in the soil in 3 forms; unavailable, exchangeable or partly available, and soluble and readily available. These forms are conditional upon the Cation Exchange Capacity of the soil.
When soil is in good health, plants obtain up o 80% of Nitrogen from the air, rain and lightning.
High nitrogen fertilisers kick start pasture too quickly and inhibit trace elements, especially copper.
The C4 photosynthesis pathway is essentially a CO2 concentrating mechanism, operates at a low stomatal conductance and allows carbon fixation at a much lower water cost than with C3 plants and grasses.
The nutritive value of C3 grasses is highest in Winter and declines through summer, whereas the quality of C4 grasses is highest in summer and declines in autumn and winter. (New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research 1996, Vol. 39: 527-540 "The place of C4 grasses in temperate pastures in Australia")