Building drought resilience in South Australia – the SA Drought Hub podcast

With conditions drying out in 2023, many producers are concerned about whether their feedbase will get them through the season.

In this episode of the SA Drought Hub podcast, we hear from the University of Adelaide’s Associate Professor Matt Denton about the project he’s leading on feedbase management for improved drought resilience in low to medium-rainfall regions.

Matt is joined by Brenton Kroehn, who runs Borung Poll Merino Stud near Waikerie. Brenton shares his experiences as a project partner providing trial and demonstration sites, and offers insights into feedbase management to help protect against the worst effects of drought.

The feedbase project – which complements the hub’s ‘Mixed species pastures demonstration sites’ project – aims to help producers extend the pasture growing season and increase pasture ground cover to protect soils. Means to achieve this include better-adapted pasture species and pasture mixtures, and improved use of technology for pasture establishment and management.

The work is funded by the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, with additional support from the SA Drought Hub.

Join leading agribusiness advisor Cam Nicholson, a partner at Nicon Rural Services, in this SA Drought Hub podcast episode dedicated to helping livestock producers prepare for and withstand drought conditions.

With the Bureau of Meteorology warning of an increased likelihood of El Niño and below-average rainfall, Cam – who runs a beef and sheep farm himself – shares insights developed through many years of experience and his work with the hub-led "Drought resilience practices in mixed farming systems" project.

Through interviews with producers across southern Australia, Cam has identified the struggles many face in deciding whether to sell or keep stock during dry spells, and when to implement livestock containment.

In this episode, Cam outlines his structured decision-making process, encompassing key trigger points that enable producers to develop practical strategies that can be adapted to changing weather and animal health factors.

In June 2023, the Bureau of Meteorology upgraded its El Niño outlook from WATCH to ALERT, indicating a 70% likelihood of an El Niño event. This will probably bring drier conditions – and an increased chance of drought – to South Australia.

But what does ‘70%’ mean? And even if an El Niño arrives, drought isn’t inevitable. So how do producers deal with these uncertainties in a way that prepares their business for dry times, without leaving themselves in trouble if good rains do arrive? In short, you give yourself multiple options and take a longer-term view beyond a single season.

In this episode of the SA Drought Hub podcast series, Dr Peter Hayman, Principal Scientist, Climate Applications at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), and Dr Chris Preston, Professor of Agricultural Science at the University of Adelaide, explore what this means in practical terms.

Peter examines what the Bureau forecast entails – what might be coming, the potential impacts, and how to use the data to your advantage – while Chris runs through the potential impacts of drier conditions on cropping and what growers can do to prepare.

Heat stress in sheep is a big problem in Australia. Exposure to high temperatures can compromise reproductive health, with the farm gate cost as a result of reduced reproduction rate estimated at $168 million per year. In the absence of tools to mitigate this impact, future climate scenarios are likely to make it worse. 

Drew Radford speaks to Associate Professor Will van Wettere, Dr Jamee Daly and PhD student Bobbie Lewis Baida from the University of Adelaide, along with Dr Alice Weaver from the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), about their important research into mitigating the impact of heat stress in sheep, with the aim to improve weaning rates. 

The SA Drought Hub is facilitating work on adoption of practical methods for sheep producers to enhance sheep resilience to heat stress.

Todd Woodard is the managing director of Peel Pastoral, a 2900-hectare grazing enterprise at Wrattonbully in South East South Australia. Todd talks to Drew Radford about mitigating the impact of dry seasons and the importance of developing systems that help producers make good decisions early to not only improve production, but also reduce anxiety. In operation since 1976, Peel Pastoral currently runs 1400 black angus cattle and 4000 composite ewes, with a focus on regenerative farming practices including time-controlled grazing, biological farming techniques, and low-stress stock handling. 

James Kerr manages Buckleboo Station in the northern Eyre Peninsula of South Australia. Owned and operated by Paroo Pastoral Company, the station runs dorper sheep on 100,000 hectares. Host Drew Radford speaks to James about recent initiatives to build drought resilience, including the installation of telemetry technology, upgraded infrastructure, and the division of paddocks into more manageable grazing areas. This work has been supported by the SA Arid Lands Landscape Board through funding from the Australian Government's National Landcare Program. The station is currently involved in an SA Drought Hub project on ground truthing satellite imagery for use in pasture management.