Index
​Introduction
Pasture management
Livestock matters
Legumes
Grazing tactics
Management
​Healthy landscapes

Healthy productive landscapes

Productive grazing systems and healthy landscapes are driven by many of the same decisions. What’s good for sustainable production is very often good for the landscape and environment that system is a part of.  The key here is taking a sustainable perspective of production and resource management with future success in mind. 
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Trees and shelter belts, effective nutrient management, managing ground cover, controlling grazing impacts, controlling weeds and preserving water quality, all directly and positively impact on production, economic and environmental outcomes.  Sustained economic return depends on sustainable management of landscape resources. Systems that build resilience and are adaptability have greater capacity to deal with the challenges of season and climate variability. 
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Keys to success

• Establish trees and shelter to promote pasture and livestock production, and protect soil and livestock assets. Shelter has particular value in key periods of the livestock management calendar including lambing and post shearing, reducing the impacts of wind chill. More broadly, shelter promotes water retention and pasture production, reduces erosion risk and contributes to beneficial biological systems. 
• Manage slope and aspect within grazing systems as it is often one opportunity to reduce erosion risk, but also positively affect feed management and utilisation. Control of grazing allows the risk of overgrazing north-facing slopes to be managed, while conversely allowing the feed grown on south-facing slopes to be more effectively utilised. Fodder shrubs on slopes may also provide a novel way of increasing feed supply and value.       
• Manage ground cover. It’s particularly important on slopes, but is important everywhere. Ground cover is a tool to reduce erosion risk from wind or water, but also improves rainfall infiltration and retention within pasture. This is clearly observable during rain. Bare areas pool, covered areas absorb. Water in the soil is water in the bank.  
• Keep nutrients on farm with planned fertiliser strategies to deliver what’s needed and not unused excess, applied where and when it will be used and not removed. Avoiding wastage of resources by seepage into the water table or as wash into waterways is both good economics and natural resource management. Alongside maintenance of groundcover, planned nutrient use limits impacts on water quality.       
• Monitor, control and avoid weeds. Some weeds are worse than others; all weeds are plants in the wrong place at the wrong time. Reducing their impact or avoiding their introduction is good for production and the landscape.  

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