CALL him ambitious but within a year or two Guyra wool producer, Rob Kelly, wants to be running 900 breeding ewes year-round on 75 hectares.
While such a stocking rate (15.6 dry sheep equivalents per hectare) would seem incredible to most producers running sheep on New England granite country, Mr Kelly's ambition is based on a solid foundation.
He is now successfully running 10 breeding ewes a hectare (14 DSE/ha) and weaners at 17 DSE/ha.
And he's not alone: experienced University of New England senior research scientist, Dr Lewis Kahn, who has been conducting trials with Mr Kelly, also believes it should be possible.
The historical stocking rate on "Mount William", the 570ha property Mr Kelly jointly runs with his parents, Ross and Wendy, sister, Leanne, and brother, Matthew, is seven ewes a hectare, or 10 DSE/ha.
That might have remained the case indefinitely except that a project aimed at optimising paddock nutrition for Merinos has radically changed Mr Kelly's expectations of what the country can offer.
After a year, the Meat and Livestock Australia-funded project, initiated by Armidale agronomists, Dr Kahn and Judi Earl, has already delivered important findings on the four criteria it set out to consider: ewe body condition at mating, pre-lambing supplementation, grazing management and sire genetics.
Central to the project, "Optimising nutrition in Merino production systems", is the Technograze high-intensity rotational grazing system pioneered in NZ.
Other rotational grazing systems have delivered proven benefits in stabilising feed supply and pasture improvement, but there is still debate over the merits of the system for sheep, particularly lambing ewes.
Dr Kahn's monitoring - the results of which were recently discussed at a well-attended field day at "Mount William" - confirmed that the Technograze system delivered substantial benefits to the semi-improved pasture and minimised worm burdens in the sheep compared with a control area set-stocked at 10 DSE/ha.
But after a year of collecting data, the benefits of rotational grazing on liveweights of both ewes and lambs are less clear.
The trial started in May, 2003, following a dressing of 150kg/ha of Super M18 - the cheapest way of addressing inherent soil deficiencies of phosphorus and sulphur - on the rotationally-grazed area.
By last December Ð when the drought had broken and feed was growing - Dr Kahn measured 2000kg of dry matter per hectare in the rotationally grazed section, more than twice the mass of the set-stocked area.
By March this year that gap had extended, with the rotationally grazed area carrying about 2750kg of dry matter a hectare (3500-4000 kg/ha in late April) compared with 1000kg/ha for the set stocked portion.
"We've worked out that now, with 125 ewes per hectare on and no more rain, we'll still have 700kg/ha of dry matter left in the Technograze system by next February," Mr Kelly said.
Over the same December-March period, the rotationally grazed ewes gained five kilos liveweight, compared with just 0.2kg for the set-stocked ewes.
Worm egg counts in the set-stocked ewes twice climbed to a point where drenching was required - just before lambing and at weaning - while infection was a lot less in rotationally grazed ewes and slowing.
Merino lambs weaned out of the rotationally grazed paddocks had negligible egg counts and did not need to be drenched in contrast to high egg counts in their set-stocked counterparts.
Impressed by the results, Rob Kelly said he would "certainly be looking at setting up more Technograze systems".
"It's not viable as a whole-farm system but having two 75ha systems set up on your most productive ground could allow you to run 1800 breeding ewes year-round on a small area while you build up the rest of the property," he said.
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