ON FARM SOUTHERN CATTLE AND SHEEP Beetles for Do you have regenerative dung beetles? Anyone can help map dung beetle distribution using the agriculture MyDungBeetle Reporter app. Use your phone to make a report by uploading up to four photos and the GPS location of the sighting. Phil Davis is hosting a dung the manure down into the soil so it Experts from the DBEE project will beetle monitoring site doesn’t spoil the grass it’s sitting on, and in doing this also aerate the soil, attempt to identify your beetles at his Tarcutta property, and reply back to your device. where the insects play a increasing water infiltration and plant critical role in farm sustainability. health, and lift our soil carbon levels. Visit dungbeetles.com.au/ “When they’re really busy you can go report‑an‑observation for more Phil and his wife Anna manage Elimatta in a paddock that was grazed a week information, and download the app Pastoral Company, an aggregation of earlier and you won’t find a cow pat from the App Store or Google Play. three properties in NSW’s Riverina anywhere – just little piles of dirt.” producing Angus cattle, Corriedale sheep and hay. The stocking rate is lower on the Seven years ago they adopted irrigation block, at around 30 dry sheep regenerative agriculture principles on equivalent/ha, but the manure load is their beef breeding block, ‘Somerset’, at still quite significant. Wagga Wagga. “After we remove the stock, we let the “The principles we follow for cattle are crop mature and cut it for hay. If we small paddocks, very high stocking didn’t have dung beetles the hay would rates, short grazing periods followed by be full of cow pat contamination.” very long grazing spells, 100% ground Project partner Red soil casts created by dung beetles burying dung at ‘Tarcutta House’, Tarcutta. cover, and no synthetic fertilisers, Phil hosts a Dung Beetle Ecosystem Image: Russ Barrow drenches or herbicides,” Phil said. Engineers project (see previous story) “We’re moving this way at the sheep monitoring site at Tarcutta House and block, ‘Elimatta’, as well.” said researchers have already identified two introduced dung beetle species The third property, ‘Tarcutta House’, is there which will contribute to improved an irrigation block where the cattle stillsustainability on‑farm. need to be drenched for liver fluke. He hopes the project will give him a The rotational grazing strategy at better understanding of dung beetles Somerset is around 50 cows and calves and any steps he can take to make sure per hectare for two or three days. they stick around. “They eat some of the grass, but also “Our current beetles are inactive from trample some of it while dropping late spring to summer, so I’m also manure and urine all over the paddock, hoping the project can deliver on its feeding the soil microbes.” aim of filling in seasonal gaps with new Phil said this is where the dung beetles species,” he said. ■ play their part. Phil Davis Sheep and cattle producer Phil Davis “The dung beetles then do two vitally looking for dung beetles on ‘Somerset’, important jobs for us: they take E: elimattapastoral@bigpond.com Wagga Wagga. SNAPSHOT:Phil Davis, Elimatta Pastoral Company, Wagga Wagga and Tarcutta, NSWlS Area: Enterprise: Livestock: Pasture: Soil: Rainfall: Three Beef cattle, 200 Angus breeders, Phalaris and Clay loams 650mm properties dual‑purpose 2,000 Corriedale ewes sub‑clover, through to totalling sheep and (in a normal season – ryegrass and decomposing 1,000ha irrigation for currently about one‑thirdnative red grass granite fodder and hay of these levels) 29