Making Saline Land Profitable

Wool growers in the Great Southern are bringing their previously unproductive saline land back into production in order to increase farm profits and the sustainable balance across their farms.

In a bid to increase production and profit from grazing saline land, the on-farm research project is working on establishing forage and pastures on salt affected land to enable them to be profitably grazed.

This new research is aiming to turn saline land in the region into an asset in terms of its impact on farmers’ incomes and on the environment. The project, ‘Bedar’s living haystack: sustainable saltland forage and pasture’, is based around the Kurrenkutten Lakes and is located on Grant Robinson’s property, ‘Bedar Farm’.

Grant’s property covers 7000 ha, however, according to Grant, 2000 ha is not arable because it is too salt-affected or too rocky. “This means that this project is of major consequence to me and many other farmers in the area with similar land,” he said.

“What I like about this project is that the results are very relevant to most farmers in the wheatbelt. If we get a reasonable result from this project a lot of currently unproductive land can be bought back into productive use.”

Project Leader, Justin Hardy, said the project involves direct seeding saltbush over a 50- hectare site in an alley farm format. “There are four rows with 10 metres in between each row to allow for an understorey of clover or barley to be grown,” he said.

“The project will compare livestock production of Merinos and Dorper crosses (wethers and ewes) on this saltland pasture compared with a barley stubble. It will compare different rates of gypsum (0, 2.5 and 5 tonnes per hectare) over the saltland pasture used to improve the soil structure and try green manuring to improve soil structure.

“The results will be measured by the weight and condition score of 20-30 experimental sheep in each treatment (before and after grazing). Wool measurements of ‘experimental’ Merino ewes will also be taken before and after grazing (staple length, strength, fibre diametre and yield). Fleece weights of experimental Merino ewes will also be measured.”

The 2800 ha property that Grant lives on is subdivided with the salt lake system. “The salt lakes run right through and are part of the Kurrenkutten Lakes,” he said. “Flooding which may occur every 10 to 20 years exacerbates our salinity problem as the floods dump sediment and a large amount of salt on the already salt-affected land. With such a large portion of my property salt-affected I have been trying to come up with a way of dealing with this country for some time.”

Grant hopes the saltbush-based pastures will simultaneously fill that costly autumn feed gap and kick goals for the environment.

“Because of the salinity problem it is considered borderline country and we have been trying to grow barley on it with limited success. Now with this project we are biting the bullet and making an attempt to turn the productivity around. It means that the land might be out of production for a short time while the saltbush is established but in the long term it will be able to carry sheep and be sustainably productive. We are hopeful that the saltbush can return something in a few years time,” said Grant.

The project is also looking at a major weed for those with salt-affected land: iceplant weed, and a small trial will be carried out comparing herbicides for controlling iceplant.

“We are starting to realise the potential of saline land,” Justin said. “This project is a great example of how a partnership between growers, scientists and extension workers can improve our understanding of options for grazing salt-affected land in the Great Southern. It is giving farmers a taste for on-farm research in a practical way.”

First published April 2004. For more information go to the Sustainable Grazing on Saline Lands Sub-program.