Murray Richards, who manages the 320-hectare Denman property, “New Haven”, for Terrigal owner, Bill Hunter, is achieving big weight gains with stock grazing the mix.

The forage underpins a stock finishing enterprise that buys Angus progeny weighing about 300 kilograms from a breeding property 30 kilometres away, and finishes them to weights of about 500kg for the Cargill and Woolworths markets.

“When the cattle are put on they chew the lucerne and chicory out and are reluctant to get onto the turnip,” he said.

“They take a lot of getting used to it, but once they get into it they go for it.

“When they do, they put on two kilograms a day weight gain.”

More farming coverage in The Land, July 9.