LAST year John Howard, Mountain View, Biloela, burnt almost 50 per cent of his country in the hope of destroying whatever was causing pasture dieback.
It didn’t work.
Mr Howard runs a commercial Santa Gertrudis-based herd with about 2000 breeders over a few Central Queensland properties, and said of his 12,200 hectares, he was forced to burn between 4050ha and 6100ha.
He described the dieback as being like a “tongue of fire” through the paddocks.
Now the dieback has returned in force, and he said with little known about the disastrous phenomenon, there was slim hope of being able to effectively control it.
Mr Howard first noticed the dieback at Mountain View in December 2015, and said the spread was exceptionally rapid.
Initially he suspected a grub was causing it because the damage would often stop at fence lines, however, numerous soil tests discounted that theory.
Every introduced species of grass on his properties has been affected, including the buffel in his scrub country.
After leucaena land at his Theodore property was affected, Mr Howard decided to burn one paddock, burn and replant another, and burn and chop the leucaena down in the third.
He said the sown seed suffered due to a lack of rain, but some grass did survive and is growing.
Now dieback is being seen even in areas with large legume growth, something Mr Howard said proved it does not only appear in paddocks with soil health issues, as has been suggested by researchers.
Already Mr Howard has been forced to move cattle and rotate around the dieback.
He said any increase in the area affected could be incredibly detrimental.
“I’d hate to think if it doubled its size to what came last year,” he said. “It would really impact on our carrying capacity.
“We’ve just bought a new place so we’re fully geared up with debt structure and we’ve got to be able to run the cattle or we can’t pay the bank.”
Mr Howard recently hosted MLA’s Geoff Maynard and Queensland Minister for Agriculture Bill Byrne at his property to survey the damage.
Mr Byrne said the state government was partnering with MLA to find some answers.
“It was very instructive to visit John Howard’s property where I could see the nature of the problem first hand,” Mr Byrne said.
”Research to date has isolated a range of potential pathogens but none have been consistently isolated from all affected plants.
“It is not a new issue and it concerns me greatly to see separate reports of unexplained dieback of a variety of native grass pastures.”
He said DAF has developed a three-year research project proposal in conjunction with MLA to undertake further extensive research to establish the cause and provide management options and solutions.
Mr Byrne said the research was of a “very high priority”, and said he has “committed the department to dramatically increasing our efforts”.
“It is reasonable to at least establish causal factors,” he said.
“This is the first question I want answered.”