FARMING SYSTEM • Sheep trading • 1200 head feedlot • Grazing crops • Average annual rainfall 598mm
The Jinjilla Farms business model is focused on leveraging their close proximity to various sheep saleyards to trade sheep. Sheep are fattened to premium market weights through careful planning and management of grazing crops and a 1,200 head feedlot. Keeping an eye on long term profitability and sustainability is what drives the decisions made by owner Mike Chambers. “We have moved 100% towards grazing crops as they better suit our sheep trading operation. These have included grazing varieties of Canola, Wheat and PADDOCK CHAT BRINGING IT BACK! 18 YEARS UNDER PASTURE. Jinjilla Farms, Central West NSW
Above: The soil was worked to a depth of approximately 200mm which transformed the soil in one pass.
Barley. ‘Our focus is on dry matter crop production for sheep feed and any grain we produce at harvest time is a bonus.’ If we get the crops seeded in March, in a good season we can graze it from mid April until the end of August. In recent years we created a sacrifice paddock to save the ground cover across the remainder of the farm. Given the fantastic Autumn break we’ve experienced this year, having had over 242mm rain, we decided now was the time to resurrect our sacrifice paddock and bring it back into the crop plan after 18 years under pasture and regular stock pressure. It was dry and heavily compacted,
soil tests showed we needed to spread lime at a rate of 2.5t/ha.
Hard tufts of Phalaris roots remained spread across the paddock from years
Ben, Phoebe and Andrew Smith (Kawea Pastoral Company) with Mike and Imogen Chambers (Jinjilla Farms)
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