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Together with my partner in this enterprise (my husband) we run a small farm in the South West of Western Australia.  The area we live in has a high winter rainfall, but with a Mediterranean climate little or no summer rain – this combined with our typically cool season annual only grazing systems means that there are very few living plants in our paddocks over the summer. The knock on effect of this is poor water holding capacity during the summer, and a high risk of bare or degraded soil.I feel very strongly that we need to move away from our traditional annual ryegrass and clover pastures to multispecies mixes that will add more perenniality in our grazing systems. This, combined with appropriately managed grazing will, from what I understand, provide the right environment for a diverse soil biology to improve water cycling, nutrient cycling and overall soil health & resilience. The trick is how to get from where we are to where we want to be.

I also work for a local landcare group and we have a range of projects working to that end – I hope that my participation in Talkin’ After Hours will assist us to gain the knowledge we need to achieve our goal.