Farm upgrades April 2022

Public Holiday weekends are for working on the farm not holidays away, right?

Last weekend we were very busy installing some more cattle troughs, welding up some new gates for the Hay shed and making some track upgrades before winter.

The extra troughs are going to allow us to split up our existing paddocks, at Willarah Farm we use Regenerative Farming practices to improve the biology and fertility of our land and surrounding environment. We currently have our 40 acres split into 12 paddocks, after the installation of the remaining troughs we will have increased that to 20 paddocks. Having more paddocks will allow us to rest more of the farm for longer. The longer the pasture is allowed to recover from grazing the deeper it will send roots into the soil, an advantage of this is an increase in Soil carbon. A higher soil carbon % will hold more moisture and have an increased infiltration rate, this creates an optimal environment for beneficial fungi and bacteria to thrive. These little guys will then increase the available nutrients in the soil and as a result grow healthier grass and even tastier Beef.

At Willarah farm we have already increased our Soil carbon from 3.8% to 4.9% in the first 4 years! We can’t wait to see if we can push it even higher.

As for the new gates… Well that had nothing to do with tastier beef or increased soil carbon, that’s to keep the pesky cows from reaching over and eating the hay in the shed. I think we’ve won that battle for now.