LEGUME-BASED PASTURE OPTIONS FOR THE LIVE CATTLE TRADE FROM THE AUSTRALIAN SEMIARID TROPICS

The extensive beef industry in the Northern Territory has been based a lmost exclusively upon native grass pastures for over a century. The r ecent development of an export trade for live cattle of specific age, weight and type, has increased returns over chilled manufacturing beef exports and has resulted in a demand for improved pastures that can s upport rapid growth of young cattle. This paper compares the potential of native grass pastures, legume ley pastures and permanent sown gras s-legume pastures, in a range of configurations, to meet the market de mand. Results of farming systems and sown pasture management experimen ts conducted at the Katherine Research Station are presented. Data fro m these experiments and other sources are used to explore options appr opriate to the new market. Particular attention has been given to the time required for weaner steers to reach export target weights of 290- 300 kg/head and the flexibility of systems to seasonal and animal vari ability. Permanent sown pastures are sustainable at stocking rates of about 2 steers/ha, but results indicate difficulty in maintaining legu me dominance in the ley pastures, particularly if the cropping frequen cy is reduced. A proposal to use forage crops, rather than grain crops , to deplete soil nitrogen and reduce the incidence of weeds, is discu ssed. We recommend that ley pastures be retained as part of the manage ment system, despite management difficulties, as they provide higher p roductivity and greater flexibility for farmers to meet the market req uirements.