If some of our most marginal grazing country can be regenerated from 5% groundcover to 80% groundcover, then surely there is the ability to regenerate virtually all our agricultural land. The marginal country I’m talking about is in western NSW, northwest of Cobar in Australia. I mention this marginal country because the McMurtrie family have used water spreading banks (combined with thoughtful grazing management) to help regenerate areas of their property and I thought this was a good flow on from last week’s topic.
I will first point out that water spreading banks are NOT keyline farming as I talked of last week – where water is spread from the valleys to the ridges. Water spreading banks however, have a similar purpose in that they aim to alter water movement and runoff, spreading and slowing water movement so that there is more opportunity to infiltrate rainfall into the soil.