A wool and CO2 winner

The assessment of Mr Ive’s 250-hectare property “Talaheni”, in the Yass Valley north of Canberra, found since 1980 it had sequestered enough soil carbon alone to offset all the farm’s livestock enterprises.

But with wife Robyn and his family, Mr Ive has also planted more than 200,000 trees, which took the carbon budget well into the black.

Mr Ive had done his own life-cycle assessments in 2011, and concluded that his operation was slightly carbon-neutral.

He won the 2012 Carbon Cocky award from Carbon Farmers Australia, which led to University of Melbourne’s Natalie Doran-Browne making a formal research project of the farm.

Mr Ive said the finding, and his path to it, showed becoming carbon-neutral was not only possible, but desirable for productivity.

“The practices you do to move towards being carbon-neutral are the same practices that improve the productivity of your land.”

In 1980 when the Ive’s bought “Talaheni” it was badly degraded and webbed with erosion gullies, and productivity on the flats was badly compromised by saline weeps.

Apart from dryland salinity and soil acidity, soil carbon levels in the top 10 centimetres were just 0.7 per cent.

After planting trees on upper slopes, and improving pastures and soil fertility, their carefully managed livestock grazing has lifted farm productivity.

In doing so, they enabled the farm’s soils to capture more rainfall, which drives carbon development from plant growth, which in turn contributes to even better rainfall infiltration.

The trees, strategically planted at key recharge sites, soak up excess water which had forced salinity to the surface, allowing the Ives to reclaim the use of fertile lower land previously rendered useless by salinity.

The study was published in Animal Production Science.

An important indicator that John Ive has substantially boosted carbon levels in his farm landscape: he runs more stock.

Over 40 years, stock carrying capacity on “Talaheni” has grown by 0.15 Dry Sheep Equivalents (DSE) a year on average, while cattle weaning weight has increased by a kilogram/year as pasture management and pasture availability has improved.

And that is despite about 30 per cent of the property being planted to trees – or because of it.

The trees have soaked up excess recharge which had forced saline water to the surface, threatening some valuable areas of the farm’s flats.

Those flats are now capable of carrying 35 DSE/hectare, compared to the early 1980s when Mr Ive battled to run one DSE/ha on them.