"Lerida" In brief..

Property:

Lerida

Address:

Cobar

Owners:

Ray Anderson

Phone:

Area (in hectares)

40000 ha

Rainfall (mm/pa)

300 mm

Oldman Saltbush area (hecatares)

200 ha

year of first Planting

1996

Q & A: an interview with Ray Anderson

Why OMSB planted? 

Purely for drought feed, which is always on our mind in this type of country.

What grazing and pasture benefits have been observed?

Our ewes and lambs are always put back into the saltbush paddocks after marking. The good feed and shelter allows for much better mothering. You have a lot less losses from mis-mothering. We have mobs of 2,000 ewes on the bush and out here that is unheard of. It has also been bloody good for animals after mulesing. The good feed seems to help the lambs get over it quicker. But you need to have the lambs trained to the bush first. Our ewes eat the bush straight off, the lambs follow pretty quick.

What financial benefits have been observed?

We have more feed in dry times. What else can I say. Thats big money. I know that once we have more we will have more money benefits. I wish we could have 10,000 hectares.

Biggest OMSB impact?

Having good feed when its dry. Its green, you dont see much green feed here when its dry apart from the trees and all they are good for is taking the moisture. The neighbours keep asking me questions about it, so I suppose that has to be a good sign.

Any problems with OMSB?

Yes, lack of moisture for planting. It makes it hard going when it doesnt rain and difficult to have a good establishment.

Do you / if you had a salinity problem, do you think OMSB would help with controlling deep drainage and/or lowering the water table? Yes, it would have to. I dont know where it gets the water from but it pulls it out of the ground. If it does that on this country it must be good for fixing salt where they have it. I know what it can bloody do on claypan country at getting moisture from nowhere. It just takes off on this hard country, I reckon it would do the same for salt because its hard going.

Would you like to increase your area sown to OMSB? Bloody oath. I would have 10,000 ha tomorrow if we could afford it.

What limits your planting of a larger area? Not enough money for our wool.

Our Comments:

Planting OMSB in this low rainfall country certainly opens up many management opportunities. Ray has now retired as manager of this property but his vision & benefits of OMSB still remain.