Deferred grazing in NZ - ‘Catch the Rain’ webinar Apr'24

Webinar host Sam Lang and guest farmers Mark Koopmans, Jono Frew and Russell Heald discuss the practice of deferred grazing in New Zealand.

Deferred grazing is a management practice where surplus pasture growth is saved by setting paddocks aside (similar to silage or hay) and usually grazed when feed demand exceeds pasture growth, providing a low cost ‘supplementary feed’ that can protect pasture recovery times during dry or cold weather. Deferred grazing can also offer a number of soil health and pasture benefits.

Topics covered include:

• How and why farmers utilise deferred grazing in different systems - hill country vs high country vs dairy systems

• Things to think about when selecting paddocks to defer; timing, pasture species, stock classes, grazing densities, utilisation etc

• Benefits and uses of deferred grazing

Farmer observations regarding stock performance, pasture benefits, soil benefits etc

And more!

This webinar was funded by Beef + Lamb New Zealand as part of the ‘Catch the Rain’ project.

To find out about and register for upcoming webinars, click here to visit our Network events page.

To get notified about future webinars, sign up to the monthly QS newsletter.

---

Links related to the webinar

• Quorum Sense Toolbox: https://www.quorumsense.org.nz/the-toolbox

About ‘Catch the Rain’

Catch the Rain is a farmer-driven education, research and innovation project focused on improving rainfall infiltration and soil moisture retention on non-irrigated pastoral farms. Is it funded by Beef + Lamb New Zealand and led by Quorum Sense.

There are 40 farmers participating from Southland to the Manawatu that are developing, implementing and monitoring on-farm trials. Many of these trials are focused on testing different grazing techniques. For more about Catch the Rain visit www.quorumsense.org.nz/catch-the-rain-project.