Grazing land management

Grazing land management is about managing your cattle (numbers, types and location) to make the most of your pastures while maintaining or improving land condition and biodiversity. Healthy country means healthy cattle and a healthy, sustainable business. Managing for climate, wherever possible, also plays a significant role in your grazing land management strategies.

On this page:

• Carbon management
• Drought
• Fire
• Land condition
• Land types
• Pasture budgeting
• Soils
• Stocking rates
• Wet season spelling
• Resources – tools, workshops, publications and links

Carbon management

• Soil organic matter and carbon sequestration in pastures
• Risks and returns of selling trees for carbon credits
• Soil carbon sequestration: myths and mysteries (PDF, 107 KB)

Drought

• Pasture management for drought recovery

 

Fire

• Burning management in the Fitzroy Woodlands (PDF, 2.11 MB)
• Case study: Fire management in the Fitzroy woodlands (PDF, 855 KB)
• Managing the risks of using fire in grazing country
• Use of fire in grazed woodlands – Queensland
• Use of fire in grazing country – Queensland

Land condition

• Case study: managing for land condition (PDF, 1.01 MB)
• Degradation – gradual process or event driven?
• Land condition
• Land condition in the Fitzroy Woodlands – Scrub country (PDF, 1.29 MB)
• Land condition in the Fitzroy woodlands – Forest country (PDF, 2.86 MB)
• Rolling ball model – a slippery slope to poor productivity

Land types

• Land types of Queensland
• Land types of Northern Territory
  • Cadastre is the Active Layer. Click on the Search panel (lower left) and enter property details. Click New to zoom to this selection.
    To display land systems – tick on the layers in the folder Land > Land Resources > NT Land Systems
    To create a map – click the print tool to create an A3 map of land systems over the selected property.
    View Help resources at the top right of the map screen.
  • Quick start guide
  • General information and user guides

Pasture budgeting

• Break of season rules for forage budgets
• Dry season pasture budget – a guide for stocking rates

Soils

• Soil biology – what is it all about?

Stocking rates

• • Case study: stocking rate management in the Fitzroy Woodlands (PDF, 346 KB)
  • Don’t eat all your grass – ground cover at the break of the season is important!
  • Link cattle numbers to grass supply
  • Stocking rate management in the Fitzroy Woodlands (PDF, 1.52 MB)
  • Stocking rates, production and profitability

Wet season spelling

• Wet season spelling
• Phases of pasture growth – buffel grass: A visual aid to restocking after wet season spelling (PDF, 1.73 MB)
• Wet season spelling in the Fitzroy Woodlands (PDF, 1.05 MB)
• Wet season spelling – a grease and oil change for your grass!

Resources

Tools

• Agbiz: farm budgeting tools
• Best-bet practices for managing the grazing lands of the Fitzroy Woodlands: a technical guide of options for optimising animal production, profitability and land condition (PDF, 19 MB)
• Land types of Queensland
• Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS)
• Pasture photo standards
• Producer demonstration sites (PDS)
• The Long Paddock
• The Leucaena Network
• Tropical Forages: an interactive selection tool
• VegMachine®
• Weed Identification Tool, Weeds in Australia
• Visit Meat & Livestock Australia’s Grazing land management hub for grazing land management resources and learning opportunities to help you improve the management and utilisation of your feedbase.

Workshops

• Grazing land management EDGE
• Stocktake: balancing supply and demand

Publications

• Publications about grazing land management
• Publications about pastures
• Publications about forage crops
• Publications about environmental management

Multimedia

• Grazing land management-related multimedia resources

Useful links

• Pastures and forage crops
• Environmental management
• Pastures, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
• Broadacre field crops, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
• Forestry, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
• Grain & Graze™
• Weeds, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Western Australia
• Weeds, Department of Industry Tourism and Trade, Northern Territory
• Weeds, Biosecurity Queensland
• Weeds in Australia, Australian Government
• Weeds of National Significance (WoNS)
• Northern Territory natural resource (NR) maps
  • NR Maps Quick Start Guide
  • NR maps general information and user guides