LEUCAENA has out-performed grass, oats and lotfeeding as a cattle finishing system in a two-year producer demonstration site (PDS) in South-East Queensland.
Roma beef producers Ranald and Sally Ferrier purchased their 1200ha Bell property, Bannockburn, 10 years ago and use the property to background steers on leucaena and improved pastures before finishing them on oats or in a 500-head feedlot on the farm.
The Ferriers have planted 200ha of leucaena on Bannockburn over the past five years with about half of the crop planted in an elevated location where it is rarely impacted by frost.
Mr Ferrier said they initiated the PDS because they wanted some independent information on how the feedlot compared to oats, leucaena and improved pastures as a finishing system.
“We were putting weight on cattle through different systems and we thought it would be interesting to have some independently monitored data on those systems,” Mr Ferrier said.
“It’s been a really interesting process and it is great for our business to have that hard data now.”
Together with farm manager, Steve Munge, the Ferriers hosted about 100 producers, extension officers and industry representatives at a field day at Bannockburn recently to discuss the results of the PDS.
Allan Sorley, Alma Park, Bell, Ranald Ferrier, Nareeten, Roma, and Peter Heelan, Ulcanbah, Clermont, attended the field day. Click this image to see more in the online gallery.
The project was run with the support of staff from the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF) including FutureBeef extension officers, Tim Emery and Roger Sneath, and QDAFF economist, Fred Chudleigh.
The study saw two mobs of EU steers (non HGP), 87 head and 100 head, assessed during 2011 and 2012 respectively.
About three quarters of each mob was run on elevated leucaena-grass pastures for six months up until June, at which point the group was split three ways onto oats, into the feedlot and back onto elevated leucaena.
The remainder of the steers were retained on improved bambatsi, green panic and Rhodes grass pastures for the entire period.
QDAFF extension officers assisted with regular weighings and recorded average daily gains on the various mobs.
Extension officers also collected faecal samples to monitor the ongoing quality of the various diets while economist, Fred Chudleigh, analysed relevant economic data.
The findings
In 2011, the steers grazing on grass for 364 days recorded an average daily weight gain of 0.58kg/head compared to 0.7kg/head on leucaena.
The 23 steers grazing on oats recorded an average daily gain of 0.77kg/head while those in the feedlot recorded average daily gains of 1.52kg/day. Detailed economic analysis assessing the partial return on livestock capital invested revealed that in 2011, the first-period (November-June) return for the leucaena was 21pc and 8pc in the second period (June-Nov.) compared to returns of just 9pc in the first and second period for grass, 7pc in the second period for oats and 12pc in the second period for those cattle in the feedlot.
The steer daily weight gain on grass and leucaena was again assessed in 2012, however only over a 320-day period, with the results being 0.48kg/head and 0.73kg/head respectively. The oats and feedlot weight gains improved slightly in year two.
The 2012 economic returns for leucaena weren't as impressive but still profitable, with 9pc in the first period and 6pc in the second period. In the same year, the oats returned 3pc in the second period while the feedlot returned 13pc.
In 2012, the grass finishing system returned 6pc in the first period and only 0.6pc in the second period. A full list of input costs, excluding labour and selling costs, was used to determine the cost of gain for each finishing system in 2011.
Project coordinator Tim Emery said economic analysis revealed that in 2011, grass cost $0.68/kg, leucaena $0.61/kg and oats $1.75/kg while lot feeding cost $2.04/kg.
“The elevated leucaena produced extra weight gain and allowed for a higher stocking rate compared to improved pastures, which meant that the kilograms of beef produced per hectare was twice the amount in both years,” he said.
While the PDS results highlighted the strong performance of leucaena, Mr Ferrier said he was not planning on any further large-scale plantings of the legume.
“The leucaena certainly came out looking good but that doesn’t mean I’m going to rush out and plant all leucaena,” he said.
“It just gives us some solid data so that we aren’t guessing all the time. It’s also important to note that the cattle involved in this trial were EU cattle that weren’t treated with any HGPs.”
Mr Ferrier said the results of the PDS also reinforced that cattle don’t perform well on grass during winter.
“It’s something that everyone knows but the figures really highlighted that even though the steers were in good paddocks during both winters, they still lost 0.25kg/ head/day,” he said.
“It really highlighted that if we want cattle to keep putting on weight in winter than we need to be giving more than just grass.”
Mr Ferrier said he would now like to see more research work done on finishing systems to help producers make more informed decisions on-farm.
“I would encourage other producers to do similar PDSs because that would really add to the bank of data we already have and make that information much more valuable,” he said.
