T.J. TIERNEY¹ and E. GOWARD²

¹Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Coolum Research Station, Coolum 4573.
²Formerly Biometry Branch, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Brisbane. 4001.

Abstract

Pangola grass (Digitaria decumbens) pastures on coastal lowland wet heath in south-east Queensland were subjected to annual fertiliser rates of 288 and 480 kg nitrogen ha^–1 and 4.94, 7.41 and 9.9 Hereford steers ha^–1 over a period of 19 months grazing. Mean liveweight gains for the low and high nitrogen treatments were 681 and 691 kg ha^–1 and for the low, (LSR), medium (MSR) and high stocking rate (HSR) were 460, 735 and 865 kg ha^–1 for the spring–summer period. Steer liveweight changes followed a very similar pattern to dry matter availability.
Dry matter presentation yields of pasture were not greatly different for the low and high nitrogen fertiliser rates but the LSR always had higher yields than the MSR which in turn had higher yields than the HSR. Dry matter availability was of the order of 3000 to 4000 kg ha^–1 in autumn, with a steady decline to 1000 kg ha^–1 or less in late winter–early spring. There was then a rapid increase to reach peak levels of between 3000 (HSR) and 7000 (LSR) kg ha^–1 in summer.