Beef breeders battle the water bluesBy Jim Mynard

Ellinbank Research Centre dairy extension officer Greg O’Brien and West Gippsland Hospital theatre nurse Fiona O’Brien must be as busy as anyone can be.
They own and run the Callista Park Belgian Blue Stud at Willow Grove where they run 200 cows and calves on 300 acres.
Part of Greg’s research involves economy of water in dams – a work brought forward by the extended drought.
They had been farming at Modella on the flats where it was wet, and moved to Anderson Road Willow Grove in 1996 where they bought a farm that had plenty of water storage, running springs, and overflowing dams.
So they thought.
“But long-time springs and the dams have dried up,” Greg said.
This meant the need for a major rethink of expectations they had for their new venture into beef.
Greg was born in Melbourne and Fiona was born in Manchester, England.
He moved to the country as a youngster in 1982 and Fiona spent much of her childhood in Spain.
They met through mutual friends and bonded to a large degree because of their interest in hobby farming, and now work together on the 230 acres they have bought at Anderson Road plus 65 acres leased nearby.
Their respective occupations and 200 cows and calves manage to keep them fully occupied.
They developed the Callista Park Belgian Blue Stud at Willow Grove and for value adding they started Callista Park Farm House Meat.
“We do this through the Gatti Family Butchers at Yarragon.
“We select animals from the herd and they take them to Radfords to be slaughtered.
“Gattis then cut and pack the meat to our orders and hold the finished product in their refrigerators for our clients.
“Some go there to pick it up and some we deliver,” he said.
Greg said most of their vealers were sold through the Farm House Meat business.
He said they started in Belgian Blues because they needed to get more weight on their calves.
“We leased a Belgian Blue bull, but really good Belgian Blue bulls are hard to get so we started a program to breed our own.
“This involved embryo births and was a slow process, but is working well, and we now have enough bulls for our natural breeding.
“We enter carcass competitions to give us an idea of how we are going, and how the bulls are producing, by having the comparison with other growers,” he said.
Fiona said she started out with cows and calves and later moved her husbandry to angora goats.
“I also concentrated on sheep for a time and used the New Zealand developed Drysdale to produce carpet wool.
“I also had an interest in race horses at one time.
“But I’m now back working with our cows and calves,” she said.
They both take their respective jobs seriously and still have time to manage the farm and stud as well as their concentration on water conservation.
Greg’s work involves research into production, grazing, cropping and management.
Part of this now involves research into squeezing more water out of farm dams and he has used purpose-built dams on his property and existing water holes to look for ways to conserve water.
They have become reliant on underground water.
This meant sinking a bore and installation of a solar powered pumping system.
Work to minimise evaporation and seepage from the dams has also been a priority.
“We bought the farm at the end of a very wet season and the dams were full.
“Our main concern was the quality of water rather than the quantity.”
When they arrived they installed troughs in every paddock and fenced the dams to ensure stock had clean water and to minimise damage to the dam banks.
The reticulation system was established with gravity-fed water from the large dam on a high part of the property, making rotational grazing simple.
But the couple ran into problems when conditions suddenly became dry.
The feeder dam became low and reticulation from the smaller dams along the creek was not feasible.
They had lower run-off the following winter and spring and realised they needed to find ways to capture more water.
Greg and Fiona decided to put in a bore and to build three small dams in areas they thought would provide good run-off.
They found yabbies had undermined a wall of the largest dam resulting in high water losses, and were also losing a significant amount of water from every dam through evaporation.
A bore was installed at a cost of around $12,000.
This required a bore construction licence, but because it was for stock and domestic purposes, no other permit was required. Information obtained from consultants about bores in the area indicated that most were around 60 metres deep and that the location would have little influence on the chances of finding water.
They decided for ease of monitoring, proximity to power and ability to gravity feed that it was best to sink the bore near the house.
Greg said the bore went down to 68 metres and provided good water with low salinity and iron.
The solar-powered pump has a 240-volt battery bank and delivers 2500 litres of water per hour.
The system has a diesel back up.
The bore is now an essential part of the farm operation, particularly in summer.
“We couldn’t maintain our stocking rate without it.
“Last year’s run-off was the worst ever and we used the bore for 80 per cent of our water over summer,” he said.
The dams still play an important role, particularly in the cooler months, and Greg says there’s been a real benefit in minimising losses from seepage and evaporation.
They rebuilt the damaged dam wall at a cost of $2000 and while there was still seepage due to soil type the water savings have been well worth the cost.
Greg and Fiona also lined the dam with silage-pit plastic.
Unfortunately they did not have the equipment to cover the liner with a protective cover of dirt and it was ruined by kangaroos.
“We took the short cut and paid the price.
“The lesson here is to do it well and do it once,” he said.
They deepened the two main dams and ensured the new dams were sufficiently deep to reduce the proportion of surface area exposed to the air to reduce evaporation.
“The dams are around 10 metres wide and five metres deep, which works well.”
They also aim to have plenty of vegetation around the dams.
This helps reduce evaporation by lowering the ambient temperature and maintaining humidity, and it protects the surface area from wind.
They are looking for ways to protect the water further by using plastic covers or silicon-based solutions.
Greg said the weather pattern had caused the need for much rethinking about farm management.
“We’ve had these dry spells before but modern farming has heavier stocking and farmers have no buffer,” he said.