Wickepin is located approximately 180 km south east of Perth. Dryland salinity in this area in increasing, with many farms having salt affected land. Winter cropping and grazing are the major agricultural activities and the region has a winter rainfall pattern. Wickepin was the first site in Western Australia to have the NyPa range of grasses planted out, including NyPa Forage, NyPa Turf and NyPa Wild Wheat. Now corporate growers, the Matthews farm has the largest area of NyPa Forage in Australia with approximately 20 hectares, which provides valuable grazing throughout the summer months. Dry matter production has been recorded at 14 tonnes dry matter per hectare over a 10 month period from May-March. This quantity of production is quite significant for an area that has an average rainfall of 320 mm/yr. Over the past summers, feed quality has been investigated, with samples being taken on a regular basis and being analyzed at the Western Australian Chemistry Laboratory in Perth. Big variations have been observed in crude protein concentration, dry matter digestibility and metabolisable energy. Crude protein variations have ranged from 5-17%, digestibility 50-60% and metabolisable energy 7-9.5 MJ ME/kg DM.
In September 2002, the 8th PUR$L conference visited the Wickepin site as part of the conference tours. The delegation visited the original planting of NyPa Forage, NyPa Turf and NyPa Wild Wheat, and then walked to an adjacent area that had been planted a month prior to the visit. At this time, the plants were just showing signs of greening up again. Pictures of this site then and now can be seen below.
Figure 1. Left- newly established NyPa Forage (planted Aug/Sept 2002).
Right- The same area 18 months after planting
Figure 2. Left - An area of NyPa Forage growing on a saline discharge zone (early January).
Right - An area of NyPa Forage higher up the slope providing green feed late in December.
Under the Sustainable Grazing from Saline Lands (SGSL) program, a site has been initiated at Wickepin to compare the growth potential of NyPa Forage with other salt tolerant species. Tall Wheat Grass was initially used as a comparison, however it did not persist through the dry conditions. More information about this site will be provided when data is available.
This page was last updated on the 4 November 2004 Restricted Access
