Understanding the role of break crops in northern Victorian forage cropping systems.

Murray Dairy is heading up the C4Milk project, which is a 3-year partnership between Murray Dairy (MD), Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) dairy group, Dairy Australia and the Gardiner Foundation.

Growing combinations of crops with consistent yields and high-quality feed that are cost-effective is important for driving productivity and maintaining a margin over feed cost in inland dairy production systems. However, as forage cropping systems become a key component in many dairy businesses it has been observed that the crop rotations selected tend to prioritise cow nutrition over agronomy considerations e.g., cereal/maize rotations with no or limited inclusions of break crops such as legumes or brassicas.

There are concerns that the limited crop type combinations will have a detrimental effect on farm system sustainability. The importance of break crops for managing production and environmental risks has been well researched in the grain cropping industry, including the specific effects one crop has on the yield and quality of the following crop. There is no similar research for forage cropping programs. It is expected that wholesale removal of above ground organic matter in forage cropping systems, which results in no conserved stubble, will have different impacts on various natural resource management outcomes when compared to grain cropping. Additional factors such as the difficulty in adopting minimum tillage and controlled traffic in forage systems could also contribute to any differing outcomes.

The aim of this research activity is to determine crop-crop effects (quality, yield, agronomic and environmental) in forage production systems in order to gain understanding of the cumulative effect of the change to intensive cropping rotations on profitability and sustainability of dairy farms, and how important beak crops might be in these systems.