Business Rural Winter 2021

50 | MEAT & WOOL » Orari Gorge Station Right genetics key to low-input farming Richard Loader P roving that with the right genetics and man- agement sheep farmers can maintain high output with less inputs has been one of the key purposes of a Beef + Lamb trial currently un- derway at Orari Gorge Station in South Canterbury. “Whether it’s drench resistance, difficulty in getting labour or consumers wanting less chemi- cal and more sustainable farming, we need to find other ways of doing things,” says station manager Robert Peacock. While there are already stud breeders recording for low input traits, Robert explains that the aim of the trial is to encourage other breeders to do so. “The more breeders selecting for low input traits, the faster the whole industry can move forwards. The commercial farmer needs to go to his breeder and ask what he is recording? What he thinks about dag scoring and measuring for worm resistance? Recording for dags is free, it’s heritable, and you can make rapid progress.” The trial involved 1000 of Orari Gorge’s com- mercial ewes AI’d to stud rams from all breeds throughout the country. The first mating was 2019 and there have now been two crops of lambs on the ground with a third mating just completed. The trial’s first input measured tail length at tail- ing time. While ewe lambs were tailed, male lambs were left with long tails At weaning all lambs were dag scored, weighed and received their first drench. “A control mob of our commercial lambs was run with the progeny trial lambs. Every five weeks all lambs were weighed, including the control mob, but only the control mob were drenched. We carried that all the way through from weaning in December 2019 through to mid May 2020, so the progeny trial lambs went five months without being drenched again. We worm counted every lamb individually at the end of February 2020, again in May 2020 and dag scored them again.” Ten ewe lambs from each AI sire were sent to AgResearch in Invermay in winter and measured for feed intake. Every animal was monitored exactly how much it was eating and measured for methane emissions. All male lambs were killed in May at 20KG carcass weight, despite not having a drench for five months. “This year we’ve repeated most of the pro- gramme in the first trial, but we killed the male lambs in March. Again, they hadn’t been drenched since weaning.” Robert says the trial has provided some valuable insights. At an individual level there were big differ- ences between the AI sires and their progeny in re- spect to dag scores, worm counts and growth rates, and no one sire or breed did well at everything. “At a mob level it was clearly shown that you can have pretty good production with a lot less input. There were some rams whose progeny had a lot less dags than others, and some grew just as fast as the control mob that were getting drenched. We found the worm count for the ewe lambs was 2400 “By using the right genetics which normally don’t cost anymore, you can reduce your inputs and maintain your outputs.” eggs/gram in February 2020 and in May 2020 with- out a drench it dropped down to 700 eggs/gram. Their immune system had come to fore. “We learned a lot about grazing. We have some paddocks of pure clover and if the lambs were starting to struggle we could put them onto clover for a short period and they would bounce back quite quickly.” Robert says even if the market wasn’t demanding low input sustainable farming, due to the fact of drench resistance and labour difficulties, farmers still need to be looking at low input farming. “By using the right genetics which normally don’t cost anymore, you can reduce your inputs and maintain your outputs.” A Beef + Lamb trial currently underway at Orari Gorge Station, involving 1000 commercial ewes, has shown that farmers can maintain high output with less input.