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7 December 2025
Experiments with pasture

As I mentioned last month we’re right in the thick of our main growing season, when fodder is abundant but the grass will also have to see us through the year with careful planning and daily herd moves to slow the mobs’ progress on their lap around the farm. Now I’m going to contradict this slightly and tell you about the other side of the coin. We’ve been experimenting with the concept of ‘thatching’ the paddocks ahead of the baking hot summer. Much of our river flats are almost impenetrable, filled to the brim with grass. With thatching, instead of running the cattle through and challenging them to eat as much as they can before moving on, we leave the cattle for a shorter period of time. Rather than eating most of the feed available, they trample it into a thick layer of seeds, stems and leaves, manure and steaming hot liquid nitrogen. This is akin to applying deep mulch in the veggie garden. We feel this is taking the regenerative mindset one step further, where we are starting to look beyond grass as a feed source or something to be harvested, and shedding the widely held conventional fear of “wasted feed”. With this experiment we hope to: feed organic matter back into the soil, feed the earthworms and encourage their frolicking, protect the soil from the coming hot summer and encourage perennial grasses which can push through the mulch layer due to their energy reserves. While this year’s drought has had us feeling weak in the shadow of nature, by the way the farm looks now and the fact that we have enough biomass on the ground to experiment in this way, we’re feeling better than ever about our farming practices.As I mentioned last month we’re right in the thick of our main growing season, when fodder is abundant but the grass will also have to see us through the year with careful planning and daily herd moves to slow the mobs’ progress on their lap around the farm.

Now I’m going to contradict this slightly and tell you about the other side of the coin. We’ve been experimenting with the concept of ‘thatching’ the paddocks ahead of the baking hot summer. Much of our river flats are almost impenetrable, filled to the brim with grass. With thatching, instead of running the cattle through and challenging them to eat as much as they can before moving on, we leave the cattle for a shorter period of time. Rather than eating most of the feed available, they trample it into a thick layer of seeds, stems and leaves, manure and steaming hot liquid nitrogen. This is akin to applying deep mulch in the veggie garden. We feel this is taking the regenerative mindset one step further, where we are starting to look beyond grass as a feed source or something to be harvested, and shedding the widely held conventional fear of “wasted feed”. With this experiment we hope to: feed organic matter back into the soil, feed the earthworms and encourage their frolicking, protect the soil from the coming hot summer and encourage perennial grasses which can push through the mulch layer due to their energy reserves. While this year’s drought has had us feeling weak in the shadow of nature, by the way the farm looks now and the fact that we have enough biomass on the ground to experiment in this way, we’re feeling better than ever about our farming practices.

Located on Taungurung Country, 75 minutes north of Melbourne, the Zintara landscape is a beautiful collage of impossible granite bouldery and ancient gum trees, located in a narrow valley where the floodplain quickly runs up to steep hills, often enshrouded in unyielding winter mists.