Spring Sown Phalaris Pastures

In many parts of southern Australia, we experience unreliable autumn conditions or indeed it is predictably dry until winter rains come along.

We also see a balance of priorities in mixed cropping systems, where cereals, pluses and oilseeds are often planted first, and pastures sown when the crop drilling concludes. Late autumn or early winter sowing of new perennial pastures may be chancy, and establishment will be slow. The emerging seedlings are challenged by declining temperatures, daylight and growth rates may not be sufficient to readily compete with weeds or pests.

Autumn sowing of new pastures may also come at a great opportunity cost. Removing paddocks from the feed base through a tough autumn, with a long establishment phase, creates an increased deficit when feed is in fact needed most. An unreliable autumn break also creates challenges with paddock preparation, especially to create the opportunity to strike weeds and reduce the weed burden prior to planting. This is especially the case with annual grass weeds such as barley grass, silver grass, annual phalaris and winter grass, which all challenge newly sown pastures.

Western Victoria

“I’ve been recommending a lot of phalaris for spring sowing over the last six years or so.  We are finding that it is hard to get a good weed kill in autumn, plus then it gets late.  Also, spring sowing means that we cut half a year off establishing it, because you can’t get much grazing from an autumn sown crop anyway. With spring sowing phalaris, I don’t recommend clover because we have a good opportunity to control some harder to kill weeds.  So, this means I can recommend dicamba, metsulfuron and 2,4-D for example.  We’ll then come back and sow subs next year, although we often have enough sub (clover) come back anyway. In an average to good spring, we have had a 100% success rate spring sowing.” 
- Mark Rouse, Senior Agronomist, Elders Hamilton.

Tasmania

“The upper Derwent Valley, highlands and east coast of Tasmania rarely get an autumn break, plus it gets cold pretty quickly in April and May. For the last ten or eleven years, most of the phalaris pastures and phalaris mixes in this area that I have been involved with, are sown between late July and late August.  This also really helps to get a lot of the grass weeds dealt with, and we are sowing into moisture.  At the earlier time slot, I’m happy to get sub clovers into the mix, but as it gets later, I’d stick to recommending Storm (white) and Palestine (strawberry), as the season may a get a bit short for the subs.  We’ll come back and spread or drill some sub the following year with maintenance fertiliser. That late winter to very early spring window is really the best chance we have, and it has been working well.” 
- Dwayne Schubert, Barenbrug Territory Manager, and family farmer, Plenty, Tasmania.

Kind Island

“When I was working in Victoria, we found a lot of enthusiasm for sowing phalaris pastures in late winter and very early spring.  At first, I was a bit concerned about getting it established well enough, but from what we’ve experienced, it’s worked well.  I tended not to recommend sowing sub clovers with the phalaris (and other grasses) but could get white clover or lucerne going well on a spring sowing. 
Here on King (Island) my family started sowing Holdfast GT, Howlong, SARDI-Grazer and sub clover mix about seven years ago, and have had a solid program of doing a couple of paddocks each year.  That has all been August and September sown, and has worked really well.  The soils are deep sands that are hard to sow down in autumn and we worry about the possibility of them blowing.  Sowing the pastures in spring also means that we have less autumn ground out of the rotation.” 
- Cameron Morris, Farmer and contractor, King Island (formerly agronomy consultant Western Districts, Vic).

Spring Sown Phalaris Summary