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UPCOMING EVENTS

Stephen Pasture Seeds have a number of field days at their Pasture Trial & Demo Sites coming up over the coming months. Please check the Field Day page on this website for dates. For more information please call the office on (03) 5335 8055. 

January 2010

Stephen Pasture Seeds a pleased to be able to bring you four new products for Autumn 2010. Please click on the links for more information. 

Mach 1 Tetraploid Annual Ryegrass

Halo AR37 Tetraploid Perennial Ryegrass

Ohau AR1/AR37 Tetraploid Hybrid Ryegrass

Avalon AR1 Perennial Ryegrass

August 2009

Now is the time to start planning for spring sowing lucerne and summer fodder crops such as fodder rape, turnips & herbs. Preperations should include paddock selection, soil tests, weed control and when the feed will be required. Sowing times will differ depending on the crop used and timing of feed requirements, please contact Stephen Pasture Seeds for the best lucerne, fodder rape & turnip to suit your needs.

June 2009

Stephen Pasture Seeds and PGG Wrightson Seeds help get country Football back on the park.

Following the recent Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria and the subsequent damage done to sporting ovals by both fire and heavy fire equipment,  PGG Wrightson Seeds and Stephen Pasture Seeds offered to donate enough turf seed to get these ovals back in shape again.

Both PGG Wrightson Seeds and Stephen Pasture Seed have strong links with rural communities and understand how important it is to bring these ovals back into use again.

Stephen Pasture Seeds, based in Ballarat, supplies rural Victoria with high quality pasture seed through its appointed agents and resellers, backed by a team of agronomists in the field. PGG Wrightson Seeds also supplies high quality seed to the rural sector but also has a dedicated turf division, PGG Wrightson Turf.   

The entire project was managed by Sportsturf Consultants Pty Ltd, an independent turf consultancy business based in Melbourne with many years experience in overseeing this type of work. They undertook audits of fire affected ovals and recommended various methods of remediation. Some ovals were directly damaged by fire and were scorched while others were used as either a campground for displaced residents or staging grounds for CFA volunteers. In both cases the turf was destroyed and needed urgent attention prior to the football season commencing.

Karl Drever from Stephen Pasture Seeds and Cameron Henley from PGG Wrightson Seeds co-ordinated the donation of seed and made sure that the right seed mix was being used in every case. A mixture of fine leaf perennial ryegrass was chosen to oversow the ovals as this provided not only a quick germination but an ability to recover from wear and tear as a result of football traffic.

A total of 6000kg of turfseed was donated with a value of $24,000.

Both Stephen Pasture Seeds and PGG Wrightson Seeds are proud to be associated with this project and are confident that the turf seed they supplied will stand up to many seasons of country football.

PASTURE RECOVERY AFTER BLACK SATURDAY

Carl Pizzi milks 120 cows with help from his partner Angelina on their undulating to steep property at Traralgon South. The devastating fires on the 7th of February 2009 (“Black Saturday”) burnt 85% of their property, fences, pasture, haysheds, and shelterbelts on the property. Luckily their house, dairy and main farm sheds were saved from the fire, as the fire burnt within 200 metres of these assets.

 

Simon Hunt from Stephen Pasture Seeds, who has been giving Carl agronomic and farm management advice for 18 years, visited the property soon after the fires to assess the damage to the pastures from the fires.

 

“The burnt pastures were grouped into 3 categories, Simon said; 1) adequate density of improved pasture species and no sowing required; 2) some improved species left but low density, so “topping up” of improved species required by over-sowing; and 3) very hot burn, no improved species evident, bent grass dominant, so spray out and re-sowing required”.

 

“Carl needs to get some quick feed happening to feed the cows through the winter”, Simon added, so the spraying and over-sowing and program was quickly put into action.

 

The paddocks that just needed a “top up” were over-sown with a mixture of Kingston perennial ryegrass and Kara cocksfoot. The Kingston rye is a very persistent and productive ryegrass in 600mm plus rainfall areas. Kingston was bred to tolerate lower soil pH and higher soil aluminium levels, which from knowledge from previous soil tests done, were conditions present at Carl’s property. The Kara cocksfoot was included as the soils are freer draining and a deep rooted species such as cocksfoot add to the overall pasture production and quality, especially through the spring and summer. The Kara cocksfoot is also very drought tolerant.

 

In flatter areas some “fire relief” New Tetila was sown for quick feed following the fires, also to be cut for silage or hay later in the spring, to help replenish depleted fodder reserves. Being a larger tetraploid seed, this was sown at 25kg/ha. The “fire relief” New Tetila was made available by Stephen Pasture Seeds, via their re-sellers to farmers impacted by the fires at half the normal price.

 

Areas that required total spray out and re-sowing were sown with the SPS Sheep “n” Beef 600 pasture mix. This was seen as the most suitable perennial pasture mix for this area, given the composition of the pasture blend, Kingston and Bolton ryegrass, cocksfoot, sub clover and white clover.

 

A spray was done for Red Legged Earthmites and black headed cockchafers in May as these were doing significant damage, capeweed was also sprayed at this time. “All the work has been done now, lets hope Carl gets some favourable growing conditions to let the pasture establish and grow some much needed feed” Simon added. For more information contact Simon Hunt, Stephen Pasture Seeds 0428 457 044.