Methane emission monitoring field plots

The big issue that hit the Australian news today is that Indonesia is going to stop taking the 520 thousand cattle currently exported live from Australia. This is a huge concern the Northern Australian Cattle industry where there is no abattoir.
Moving on to my days activities. I visited the research plots that the methane work has been carried out on. The 18 plots are 2.2ha each. 9 plots are considered productive/improved areas and 9 less productive. There are 3 lots of 32 ewes on the more productive area (96 ewes) and 3 lots of 16 ewes on the less productive areas. The 3 high productive groups are rotated around the 9 more productive plots every month, and 3 three less productive flocks are rotated around the 9 less productive plots every month. Every month they are weighed and condition scored and WEC are taken every 2 weeks to look for variation in different areas. Pasture assessments are also carried out e.g. amount pasture available and the botanical composition e.g. live/dead material, amount of legumes etc. Moisture and nitrous oxide is also recorded in all paddocks. Weeds is a considerable problem this year as it’s been so wet and they would usually slash them (top) but it’s been too wet to slash. When I asked how high they slash I was surprised the answer was a foot!

Spectrophotometer's have been set up on these plots to measure methane from the sheep grazing them. These are inferred cameras that certainly proved that only sheep emit methane emissions on the paddocks, as soon as the sheep were removed there were no emissions.                                                                       I was also surprised that they have not treated the ewes and lambs to prevent them from blowfly strike as it’s been too wet and they are concerned about the product leeching straight out of the wool! To me it does not seem that wet! However due to the wet weather the rotational grazing system has gone slightly wrong with issues getting over the creek ewes have been grazing the road/pathways and have now been turned into plots with other ewes. Some plot areas have been reduced by half because of water lakes appearing.                                                                                                                                                                   I was interested by their weaning method. Lambs from one bunch of ewes are moved to another bunch of ewes e.g. Flock 1 lambs go to flock 2 ewes, Flock 2 lambs go to flock 3 ewes. This reduces the stress on the lambs and they come on a lot faster. I asked if this had any effect on the ewes and they said it had no effect on the ewes.                                                                                                                 I was also surprised to hear him say a flock of weathers is kept there just to keep roadways and the spare plot grazed to help people see snakes!