CENTRAL WEST AND HILLTOPS
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Regional stud wins Royal beef breeder gong
From fenceposts to GPS
Virtual fencing gets the go ahead to bring NSW into line with other states
Virtual fencing is set to be legalised for cattle in NSW.
Virtual fencing is used to contain cattle without the need for physical internal fencing, instead using devices such as neck bands or collars that use GPS technology and sensory cues to manage their movement.
Phil Donato, Member of Parliament for Orange, has been championing the benefits of virtual fencing for primary producers to the NSW Government for the past three years.
Now the NSW Government says it has listened, also receiving recommendations of the Legislative Assembly Committee Inquiry into the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Amendment (Virtual Stock Fencing) Bill 2024, plus the NSW Farmers, and animal welfare organisations.
Mr Donato, said he was pleased the government and the Minister for Agriculture, Tara Moriarty, had listened, worked through the issues and agreed to legalise virtual fencing in NSW through regulation.
“It is imperative that government support scienti c research-supported technological advancements in agriculture, so that our farmers have access to innovative tools which bene t the environment, animal management, their ag business and remain competitive in the marketplace,” he said.
“The bene ts of virtual fencing cannot be overstated; in fact, a multigenerational Tasmanian dairy farmer recently told me that virtual fencing has been life altering for him and his family, and that if virtual fencing had not been made available to the
business he manages he would have walked away from the industry years ago - completely burnt out.”
Using GPS coordinates, farmers will be able to use virtual fencing technology as internal fencing, rather than having to construct new or maintain existing fencing.
These devices can also monitor the activity, health and welfare of cattle so give insight into the health and movement of their herds.
This helps farmers to recon gure paddocks and reduce costs on fence repair, plus address other issues shown through data analysis more e ciently and e ectively.
NSW Minister for Agriculture, Tara
Moriarty said the government would work with industry and animal welfare groups to get the right balance for delivering virtual fencing on farms.
defy the dry at Forbes
Sales at the Central West Livestock Exchange saw big numbers as May began without significant rainfall
“These changes seek to reduce costs for farming and to enable agile paddock formation across land holdings to meet the needs of farmers while also protecting the welfare of cattle,” she said.
“The Government will now consider amendments to the POCTA Regulation and undertake consultation with key stakeholders including industry and animal welfare organisations.”
The reform brings NSW into line used.
The Inquiry Report recommended the development of a code of practise to specify animal welfare requirements and the NSW Government will ensure necessary safeguards for animal welfare, biosecurity and public safety are in place for the introduction of virtual fencing.
Consultation will be undertaken on the proposed approach to allow virtual fencing in NSW before regulatory changes are made under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals legislation.
March and April are in the single digits - 9.8mm - while Cowra airport has recorded just 18.6mm for the two months.
Forbes airport totals read 40.8mm but Parkes experienced the relief of a soaking late in April to record 84.4mm for the first two months of Autumn.
Tractors have been working around the clock on the back of that fall.
NSW Minister for Agriculture Tara Moriarty and Member for Orange Phil Donato announce virtual fencing where (inset) the cattle wear neck bands or collars that use GPS technology and sensory cues to manage their movement will be legalised in NSW.
Department’s winter crop sowing guide is available now
The latest edition of the NSW Winter Crop Variety Sowing Guide is now available online and in hard copy.
NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (NSW DPIRD) Technical Specialist Grain Services, Peter Matthews, said the guide has been updated with the latest research and development results from both departmental and industry-funded programs.
“This year, growers have an additional 16 cereal varieties and nine canola varieties to choose from,” Mr Matthews said.
“While variety yield performance is a key feature of new varieties, it is crucial for growers to compare these new varieties with those currently grown to ensure local adaptation.”
“Some new cereal varieties offer improvements in disease resistance and enhanced tolerances to soil constraints, such as acidity and sodicity.
“The latest canola varieties also provide growers with new weed management options, with newer hybrid varieties offering dual herbicide tolerance.
“This will allow growers more flexibility in controlling problem weeds and rotating herbicide groups to prevent weed resistance.
“Although no new pulse varieties are released for NSW in 2025, performance data for varieties from 2023 and 2024 shows they continue to be among the highest-yielding and best adapted to local growing conditions.”
Mr Matthews added that the Winter Crop Variety Sowing Guide includes data from the National Variety Trials, an initiative of the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), which conducts comparative crop variety testing with standardised trial management. This program provides valuable varietal information and comparisons on a regional scale.
“The aim of this guide is to help grain growers and their advisers make better cropping decisions, leading to more productive and profitable winter crops, ensuring the sustainability of farm businesses in NSW,” Mr Matthews said.
“Variable seasonal weather conditions, diseases such as stripe rust, and sharply rising crop input costs, such as fertilis-
pick up a copy.
ers, all contribute to the need for careful planning and management.
“Growers should also focus on crop agronomy and best farming practices to maximise the potential of the upcoming season.
“In particular, cereal growers should be vigilant about disease risks, such as fusarium crown rot. 2024 crop surveys indicated high levels of fusarium crown rot in many wheat paddocks, making alternative crops important for affected areas.”
Mr Matthews emphasised that growers should be prepared with varieties of different maturities to respond promptly when sowing rainfall arrives.
“The recent rainfall in the north of the state contrasts sharply with the continuing dry conditions in much of southern NSW,” Mr Matthews said.
“Crop nutrition for canola will remain crucial, especially following the high yields achieved in many cereal crops last year. Paddocks to be sown with canola are expected to have low nitrogen levels, making early attention to crop nutrition vital.
“State production records for chickpeas, faba beans, and lentils were set last year due to the availability of better-performing pulse varieties.
“Growers are encouraged to continue selecting locally adapted, high-yielding varieties with strong disease resistance, particularly against major diseases such as Ascochyta in chickpeas and chocolate spot in faba beans.”
The Guide is now available to download from the NSW DPIRD website, and hard copies can be obtained from local agribusiness stores, Local Land Services, or NSW DPIRD offices.
Game-changing rain starts Parkes’ season
Croppers watching the skies for critical Autumn rains have watched a couple of big forecasts evaporate in the lead up to the sowing season, but one Parkes farmers didn’t expect has delivered.
Properties around Parkes received between 30mm and 44mm, with as much as 60-80mm recorded to the north.
“It was very timely and very welcome, no doubt about it,” Peter Yelland from PY Agronomy said.
“It was a very important rain for this area and basically on the back of that rain, all the crop will go in on that rain, just in this postcode.”
There had been limited dry sowing of canola, so the soaking has triggered a busy couple of weeks.
“Most of the canola would be going in as we speak and rolling straight into wheat, barley, pulses
and other crops - it’ll all flow fairly quickly hopefully,” Mr Yelland said.
“As soon as they can access the ground it’ll be full steam ahead.”
Chris Baker from Baker Ag Advantage said the failure of the big forecasts a few weeks ago had been very disappointing.
There had been a lot of burning off of the significant stubble load from last year’s crops in anticipation of two rain events that just didn’t eventuate.
The tractors are in the paddocks as far west as Trundle, and even waiting to get on wet paddocks on some places around Alectown where they received 60 to 80mm.
“For those who got that 15 to 25 mm I think it’s been very beneficial and a lot of crop will get sown on that,” Mr Baker said.
“It fell over 36 hours probably so it did soak in,
which was good.”
But the region enjoying the benefits of the rain is pretty limited: properties around Forbes are still looking for the Autumn break, while the eastern Riverina including the Hilltops has just been drought-declared.
“The canola sowing window is still open but we’d want rain in the first week of May to really make that choice,” Mr Baker said – growers also looking for something substantial in the first weeks of May.
“Our soil profile’s actually quite good - it’s just the top 30cm that’s dry on the heavy soil,” he added.
“Underneath we have good stored moisture.
“It’s just getting the ability to sow a crop, get it to germinate and tap into that stored moisture is the challenge on that heavy country.”
With Baker getting crop in at Trundle himself, the Baker Ag Advantage team has also been busy planting trials on sites around Trundle, Forbes and Condobolin.
“We’re doing a lot of research this year on different rotation profitability and crop choice profitability, we’re just trying to have more data to help us help growers make good decisions,” Baker said. The rains here, with the conditions up north, have also provided some confidence for those also managing livestock, Yelland said.
“People were genuinely worried two weeks ago where they were going to go (with livestock),” he said.
“With northern NSW, Southern and Central Queensland going gangbusters … there’ll be markets for stock.”
Denngal named Royal’s Premier Beef Breeder
Denngal Santa Gertrudis has been awarded the Premier Beef Breeder’s award at a Sydney Royal Show that’s given the Moxey family plenty to celebrate.
With three generations involved, honours for their herd and the arena buzzing with excitement about the breed, Dennis Moxey described the event as “a real topper.”
Being acknowledged as Premier Beef Breeder in the interbreed awards was a stand-out recognition.
“It was a real honour to get that, I’ve never been up there before and got those sorts of awards,” Dennis said.
The Moxeys have been taking their Santa Gertrudis cattle from their property on the fertile river country of Jemalong to the Sydney Show since 1990.
Making it all the more special is the fact the enterprise now spans three generations with Dennis and Gail, their son, daughter and grandchildren all involved both in the business and the Sydney Royal trip.
They were in the spotlight when eight Denngal animals had to go into the ring for the sire’s progeny class and the entire family was on hand to do that.
“I didn’t even have to lead so
that’s how many of us were there,”
Dennis said.
“Our son and daughter, grandson and granddaughters were out there, leading all day, presenting and doing well.
“We love to teach the kids, we go to a Santa Gertrudis youth camp each year and they learn a lot from that – it’s really good.”
Denngal wasn’t the biggest exhibitor but they did win some particularly pleasing prizes – and their consistency added up to see them awarded Most Successful Santa Gertrudis exhibitor, another honour.
Their youngest entries –Denngal Upward and Denngal Kate – were named the best male and female calf of their breed, they were also a hit with the public and even featured with the 2025 Young Woman on the front page of The Land.
In another notable success their bulls took out both rst and second in the Santa Gertrudis bull under 24 months class.
“We had two bulls at home here, I usually only take one for each class and we couldn’t decide,”
Dennis said.
“They were both over 900kg and they measured up with their eye muscle very well, over 140 (in Sydney).”
This size and quality are two aspects of what Dennis loves about Santa Gertrudis as a breed.
Moxeys haven’t looked back from their choice of the Santa Gertrudis breed as one that would suit their business.
“When you start to pick out the ner points they’re a wonderful breed as far as temperament, the
style of them, their growth rates and the amount of weight they put on,” Dennis said.
Dennis has been the breed captain for about 18 years now and was this year heavily involved in organisation of the breed as the feature of the cattle show.
All eyes were on the Santa Gertrudis – their display a crowd pleaser as well as a winner with the judges.
“It certainly was a big job getting it ready but it was such a pleasure when it all came o and worked so well, and really great promotion for Santa Gertrudis,” Dennis said.
It also meant increased competition with some three times the usual entries in the stud cattle.
“It was a lot of competition and very tough competition – there were some top studs there competing that we haven’t seen for a while and they were very good,”
Dennis said.
One part of being the feature breed was working with the Australian Baking Association to produce the Hot Santa Pie especially for the show.
Using 400kg of beef from Nolan Meats, Queensland, the pies on offer to the public sold out and they were very much enjoyed by the breed association at their function.
Dozens of ‘wetlands’ now removed from plan
A water sharing plan for the Lachlan region’s unregulated water systems has been updated after community pushback on the identification of dozens of additional areas as wetlands.
The NSW Government says it has listened carefully to valuable community feedback on revised wetland mapping.
Giselle Howard, Executive Director of Water Planning for NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water, thanked the community for their insight and patience while the department worked to get the wetland areas right.
“We’ve heard from many locals on the ground, including farmers, landholders and stakeholders who have been very generous with their time and expertise,” Ms Howard said.
“Their feedback has been instrumental in helping us update the mapping, and we’re committed to continuing to engage with them over the next year so that everyone can be certain that only appropriate wetland sites are included.”
The rules proposed for the water sharing plan aim to improve protection for significant wetlands and apply to new or amended water supply works and trades in certain wetlands, to ensure that no further water supply demand is placed on those wetlands beyond current levels.
When the draft plan was released last year, the mapping showed dozens of new areas flagged as wetlands near Forbes and along the river system to Lake Cargelligo.
Lachlan Valley Water urgently called on landholders to review the plans and ensure they matched what they saw on their property, sounding the alarm about restrictions that could be placed on farming in the future.
In the finalised water sharing plans, which will come into effect by 1 July 2025, prescribed wetland areas will be limited to internationally significant Ramsar listed sites, areas registered in the Directory of Important Wetlands of Australia, and any wetlands already receiving protection in the current water sharing plans, as these are sites that are already formally recognised.
Over the next 12 months, the government will continue to consult with landholders and the community on other wetlands identified in the revised maps.
The water sharing plans will then be amended before June 2026 to add wetlands from that group that have been looked at in close detail.
The department will also be revisiting the wetland maps in six additional unregulated plans that came into effect in July 2024 with additional community consultation scheduled for the second half of 2025.
calf.
Rethinking pests as weed control
By REBECCA HEWSON
A new study by UNSW Sydney researchers suggests that introducing herbivorous insects or animals to control invasive weeds might be triggering a cooperative response among the plants, allowing them to thrive rather than decline.
Lead author Professor Stephen Bonser from the UNSW School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences says that although invasive species are long-studied, the ongoing rise of their impact suggests something is missing from the current approach to controlling their spread.
Hilltops Council recently won an award at the state level in relation to a similar project it has undertaken using pests to eradicate outcroppings of invasive species of cactus.
“I don’t think we’ve been measuring the success of biocontrol agents correctly,” Professor Bonser said.
He says the way biocontrol works is that it takes specialised enemies of the invader species from their home range and adds them to the invaded range.
“They’re supposed to knock the invasive species back enough so that we can control their population.”
Hilltops Council recently won award for using the same method that the University of NSW is studying.
PHOTO: Supplied.
food production challenges.
“The Green Revolution was all about making plants more cooperative,” Professor Bonser said.
During this period, scientists were able to isolate and grow less competitive plants that focused their energy on making more food.
They achieved this by selecting and breeding dwarf varieties, based on their hormone properties.
fessor Bonser the very thing meant to stop the invaders might be making them stronger.
By damaging individual plants and reducing competition, the group of invasive plants start playing as a team.
“What we think is happening is that the biocontrol agents are turning aggressive invaders into cooperative communities,” Professor Bonser said.
cals might not grow as tall to compete with other plants,” he said.
“And by not spending their energy on competing, they can put that energy into reproducing.
“We think the herbivores trick the plants into cooperating – they stop wasting their energy on ghting and instead start working together.”
“And when they cooperate, they can cover massive areas – even more than before.
“One of the notable successes of biocontrol so far is a little caterpillar that’s quite e ective against prickly pear,” Professor Bonser said.
“However, we also have dozens and dozens of cases now where we’ve applied a biocontrol, we think it should work, and then it doesn’t seem to.”
He says the bitou bush is a perfect example of this.
The plant is a coastal species that grows in dense monocultures, sometimes covering vast areas.
The biocontrol agent for this is the caterpillar from the bitou bush tip moth.
Professor Bonser said the e ectiveness of biocontrol agents is currently measured by their impact on individual plants.
Prickly pear plants are cacti native to the Americas that are now invasive in both natural and rural parts of Australia.
“A single caterpillar can knock back the growth of individual plants of the bitou bush quite substantially,” he said.
However, the key is in controlling populations.
“While the moths are now well-established biocontrol agents, populations of bitou bush are still spreading like wild re,” Professor Bonser said.
Cooperating vs competing: Plants compete by racing to grow taller than their neighbours to steal all the sunlight, instead of cooperating by sharing resources and working together, as a team.
Professor Bonser says the latter is how crops such as corn and wheat took o during the ‘Green Revolution’.
This period, from the midto late-1900s, transformed farming by adopting agricultural technologies to address
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“Cooperative traits were bred into plants using early genetic engineering techniques,” Professor Bonser said. “This resulted in shorter plants, and this is how farms became much more productive.”
According to the Professor when plants in crops compete for more light, they get so tall that they are top heavy and fall over.
Plot twist: In forests and other natural areas, it’s a different story – the plants that grow fastest and tallest “win”.
Cooperative plants o en get pushed out of an ecosystem by more aggressive, competitive ones.
“Game theory tells us that cooperation is rare in nature,” Professor Bonser said.
“If a plant stops ghting for resources, a competitive one will swoop in and take over.”
Biocontrol is used to slow down invasive plants such as weeds.
However, according to Pro-
“Instead of judging how useful biocontrol is based on how it a ects individual plants, we need to look at how whole groups of plants behave.
“Because what hurts one plant may hurt, or help, the entire team.”
According to the Professor herbivores eat the parts of plants that help them ght against each other, disrupting vertical growth by eating their shoot tips.
He also said it is wellknown that plants growing taller and faster in competition with others o en aren’t as good at protecting themselves from herbivores.
This is because a plant’s ability to compete vs its ability to defend are linked by its genes.
“This could work in reverse, where a plant that protects itself with chemi-
Professor Bonser said demonstrating that impact of defence responses on competitive responses is a key next step.
Turning over a new leaf:
Professor Bonser said he and his collaborators are now researching how to break up ‘invader teams’ of plants.
This includes experiments that introduce tall, strong native plants that disrupt their teamwork, as well as combining biocontrol with other methods.
“This could change how we ght invasive species in nature but also how we grow crops to further boost food production,” he said.
According to Professor Bonser this doesn’t mean adding insects to crops.
“But we could perhaps trick plants into thinking they had insects on them –this could possibly help them start growing in a more cooperative fashion,” he said.
“This is just the beginning of a new story.”
Safety, practical solutions core of roundtable talks
Agriculture remains one of Australia’s most dangerous industries and it’s for this reason members from across the agriculture sector and NSW Government have come together for an industry roundtable on improving farm safety.
SafeWork NSW hosted the discussions in Orange on 29 April which saw the attendance of NSW Minister for Work Health and Safety Sophie Cotsis, NSW Minister for Agriculture Tara Moriarty and Member for Orange Philip Donato.
Representatives from local agricultural employers, NSW Farmers, unions, academics, relevant government agencies, and the Country Women’s Association were also present.
This year’s agenda focused
on real-world challenges, including the daily risks faced by farmers, the barriers to changing safety behaviour, and the importance of e ective prevention strategies.
A dedicated session called Prevention in Action explored proven safety measures, which was followed by a collaborative discussion on designing future initiatives that are practical, relevant, and industry-led.
Connectivity key: As part of the ongoing initiatives sparked by the 2024 Agriculture Roundtable, the SafeWork NSW Improving Connectivity for Farmers sixmonth pilot program is helping enhance mobile connectivity, signal strength, and reliability for farmers across regional NSW.
The pilot began on 17
March this year and will run through to September, covering the Trangie to Burcher region and surrounds.
The program targets towns and localities across the following areas: West Wyalong, Burcher, Cli on Grove, Borenore, Manildra, Cudal, Molong, Trangie, Nevertire, Tottenham, Dubbo, Condobolin, Tullibigeal, Lake Cargelligo, Euabalong, Nymagee, Parkes, Forbes, Trundle, Tullamore, Fi eld, and Albert.
This initiative aims to support safer, more connected farming operations in regional NSW.
Eligible farmers can claim up to $1000 through the Small Business Rebate towards the purchase of a mobile signal booster or a mobile satellite internet system.