"If there's no profit, there's no sustainability." Professor Nick Costa
Most businessmen would love to have 24 per cent annual growth sustained over 14 years. That’s what beef farmers in the Dandaragan Shire are reporting.
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A major ingredient in their bonanza has been unlocking the full potential of tree lucerne, otherwise known as tagasaste or ‘tag’.
Discovering the key was a collaborative effort by researchers through a project funded by Meat and Livestock Australia and involving the Department of Agriculture WA, Murdoch University, CSIRO, The University of WA and local farmers.
Tag has long been promoted as a wonder fodder – a perennial legume with a deep root system capable of not only surviving the hot, dry summer but at the same time delivering a precious high protein, high energy, high growth diet.
“Inexplicably, summer grazing of tag was proving a disappointment with body weights holding their own, at best,” said Nick Costa, Professor of Sustainable Agriculture at Murdoch’s School of Environmental Science.
The team eventually hit on the answer: in summer tag produces low molecular weight phenolic compounds – “the stuff we can stick in our margarines to keep our cholesterol down”. The compounds were curbing the activity of the bugs in the rumen, which meant the breakdown of the protein never commenced.
The breakthrough came with the discovery that feeding lupin grain with the tag over the summer and autumn kick-started rumen activity by increasing the supply of microbial protein. As little as one kilogram of lupins a day negated the phenolic compounds, producing an incredible 0.6 kilograms of body weight per day.
Local farmers are over the moon with the result – here’s a means for catching top prices by delaying the delivery of cattle to feedlots until the end of summer and into autumn, instead of having to deliver them at the beginning of the season. Consumers also have cause for joy with the promise of affordable prime beef all year round.
As pleased as he is to have helped unlock a commercial bonanza, Nick Costa has never lost sight of the considerable potential that tagasaste holds for developing sustainable agriculture. Once planted, tag bushes can last 40 years, important for stabilising soils; and the deep root system helps fight salinity by keeping water tables down.
A native of the Canary Islands, tagasaste has so far been spread to about 70,000 hectares of WA farmland, with an estimated potential application of 1.5 million hectares.
The guiding dictum for Costa and his work is: “If there’s no profit, there’s no sustainability.” On the basis of the Dandaragan results he is confidently predicting an increase in the role of biotechnology in WA agriculture. Majors in biotechnology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level are offered at Murdoch University for ijnformation call 1300 MURDOCH
