Steak n' wood project aims to incorporate trees and livestock grazing at Adam and Jacynta Coffey's property

First generation graziers Adam and Jaycnta Coffey run 500 Brahman breeders on their 2500 hectare beef breeding and trading enterprise, south west of Miriam Vale.

They purchased their property seven years ago, with a view to focus on productivity and land regeneration on their property.

"When we purchased our property seven years ago, we started with four paddocks and now we've got 30 paddocks," Mr Coffey said.

"Since we've subdivided it all, we have a lot more paddocks without shade. We've always looked at ways of improving shade for livestock, and also for our pastures to allow moisture retention and protect it from frost.

"I'm always curious about finding that balance between trees and grass and where that sort of sweet spot is."

The Coffeys' are part of a group of 14 central Queensland and northern NSW graziers, timber producers and a energy farm, who are currently undertaking a tropical silvopastoral experiment, to demonstrate livestock productivity and environmental service benefits of trees on farm.

The Steak 'n Wood project is a five-year project led by the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and co-funded by Meat and Livestock Australia.

The project focuses on silvopastoral systems (SPS) which are a type of agroforestry practice, where trees are intentionally combined with pasture and livestock, providing high levels of production, financial returns, and ecological benefits in a sustainable way.

In these systems, native forests or planted trees can be managed to co-exist with pasture and livestock in various arrangements such as scattered trees in pastures or tree-alley pasture systems.

Seven experiments will evaluate the establishment of SPS within private native forest and seven experiments with SPS with hardwood plantation (four of them are new planting in alley configuration and other are in hardwood plantation of 7, 15 and 21 years of age).

The sites are located in areas which receive over 750 mm of rain in a year from Rockhampton down to northern NSW.

DAF Forest Production and Protection senior research scientist Dr Nahuel Pachas said the tropical silvopastoral project could offer productivity, environmental and economic benefits through shade, shelter, biodiversity and improved soil and water health.

"This project aims to quantify the productivity and ecosystems services of silvopastoral systems, a dual management of livestock and trees as a pathway to became carbon neutral by 2030 (CN30)," Dr Pachas said.

At the Coffey property, DAF have one site with establishment of hardwood plantation in alley configuration, where they have planted 1700 spotted gum trees, along 500 metre alley rows.

Mr Coffey said the area is split across two paddocks and that there is a single hot wire that runs across the project area.

"That's how we'll manage the grazing in the alleys, up until the trees are mature enough," he said.

"We also planted progardes and stylos up the middle of those in rows.

"It'll essentially get two to three years without being grazied, then hopefully, there'll be a bit of a seed bank spread legume across the paddock."

Mr Coffey said their property was previously a "failed timber plantation" and that it was all planted to eucalyptus dunnii.

"When the former owners put the plantation in, they actually removed a lot of the existing native stands of trees," he said.

"I just picked up the old contours that used to be here with the ex plantation as best I could and just tried to run the alley rows around the contour.

"That'll be a benefit in terms of stopping runoff and trapping water running down the hill."

Dr Pachas said they are using alley configuration 20 m apart with double rows of trees.

"The selection of the tree species is key in these systems as we are aiming for timber production and the co-benefits (shade, carbon, dual income to producers)," he said.

"Alley has the advantage that can be graze with cattle and trees protected with electric fence till they reach a high of 4-5 m to remove the fence and avoid damage of the animals."

In future, the trees planted for the SPS project at Boreelum Station could also provide an income, if the Coffey family decide to harvest the timber for market.

"It's about diversification for us and if we planted five hectares every year for the next 25 years, and start harvesting and replanting at the same time, it could become a good little income stream," Mr Coffey said.

"I'm hoping that we can basically establish future millable timber without any sort of impact on grass production.

"Timber is in high demand, and it's only going to get in more and more demand."

The Coffey family also have one site with private native forest, which is also being used as part of a native regrowth experiment.

The SPS experiment is the adoption of sustainable forest management, which improves tree stand productivity by reducing competition between trees and provides an opportunity to enhance pasture productivity through decreased competition.

A total of 818 ha of SPS experiment withing private native forest in collaboration with beef producers, including five hectares at Boreelum.

Dr Pachas the majority of the sites were selected with help from Private Forestry Service Queensland (PFSQ) and areas of unmanaged forest.

"Forage productivity under unmanaged native forest is inherently low, in terms of both quantity and quality," Dr Pachas said.

"Enhanced SPS on this land can offer improved beef and timber productivity, carbon sequestration and will provide environmental benefits.

"Therefore, at the seven sites we are having treatments with unmanaged forest (control) and thinned blocks where we will be monitoring the pasture and timber productivity, soil carbon, carbon sequester by trees and biodiversity."

Regarding the planting area, Dr Pachas said the experiment would help determine a new configuration of tree planting, which they consider best for beef producers who wants to integrate pasture and trees.

Mr Coffey said they're interested in finding out the results of the native forest regrowth project.

"Too many trees and too bigger tree canopy will impact your grass production, but there's a spot in there where it will probably help it quite nicely, in terms of grass and animal production," Mr Coffey said.

"So at the same time, as we were alley planting, DAF came out and went through this area and marked the genetically superior trees and then I went around and just selectively thin with the dozer.

"When we went into this area, we just had a lot of juvenile trees all jammed in together and there was not much underneath."

Mr Coffey said the project would also limit the fire risk.

"It tells such an important story why we manage our vegetation and that there are benefits in production, carbon, and biodiversity," he said.

"We've left one area completely untouched and DAF will measure the pasture and tree growth in the thinned area, versus the pasture and tree growth in the non thinned area.

"It's just about forest management and in the bigger picture, making sure there's a good resource down the track for us to utilise."

Dr Pachas said the trials will be also used as demonstration sites for field days and workshops.

"The information collected will be published in scientific journals and available on MLA websites," he said.

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