Areas of Expertise
ILRIC possesses expertise in the use of forages and legumes for the reclamation and stabilisation of eroded red soils and increase in productivity of grazing systems in China. It has also collated a forage database for Fiji, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Extensive research has also been conducted into the improvement of soil fertility in cattle production systems through the application of sulphur fertilisers for legume growth in Indonesia, China, India and Inner Mongolia.
ILRIC and its partners have over 50 years of experience within the livestock feed and forage sectors. With the cost of feed being the single largest cost in most animal production systems, ILRIC can offer significant savings in production costs through genetic improvement of feed efficiency and research. The breadth of skills and experience available to ILRIC covers all aspects of pasture and forage production and use within all climatic zones and all livestock types. Sustainable grassland management practices may be attained through field-based scientific identification of underlying stresses, extension and training of local producers in grassland management and forage production, and the enforcement of effective and integrated policy and legislative frameworks. ILRIC can offer expertise in the following areas:
Pasture Management
- Management of pastures through drought.
- Pasture establishment.
- Benefits of pasture legume leys on subsequent cropping phases.
- The management of grazing and intensively housed livestock.
- Syntheses of soil food webs for temperate grasslands, both native and sown.
Nutrient Cycles
- Livestock feeding behaviour.
- Efficient fertiliser use.
- Integration of nutrient supplies to plants from organic and inorganic sources.
- Nutrient reuse from animal and human wastes.
- Nutrient cycling in grazing systems.
- Environmentally sustainable farming systems.
Sustainability
- Construction and maintenance of the Australian National Relational Database of experiments on soil, water and pasture sustainability.
- Analysis of interactions between grazed pastures and agro forestry.
- Development of profitable and sustainable grazing enterprises through participation in credible whole-farm research.
- Analysis of the long-term economic implications of pasture fertiliser decisions under farm budgetary constraints.
- Measurement whole-farm sustainability.
- Identification of grazing management systems to minimise negative environmental impacts.
Weed Management
- Weed ecology and weed management in the grains, pastoral and cotton industries.
- Pasture weed management.
- Using crop residues to control weeds.
- Sustainable weed management for organic herb and vegetable production.
- The effect of night cultivation on weed emergence.
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