Oats at Brigalow, Qld

Forage oats plantings have been fairly popular in sub-tropical regions of eastern Australia this year following good rain events in February and March in southern Queensland and northern NSW.

This week Beef Central spoke with several cattle producers across the region to find out how their crops are faring and how they’re using them this year

Filling the feed gap and renovating paddocks

Central Queensland agronomist and grazing consultant Ross Newman has this year started planting lucerne with an oats crop on a property north of Rockhampton – in-order to keep backgrounding cattle gaining weight until later in the year.

The property generally runs about 1000 head, with an influx of about 3000-4000 backgrounders from the Northern Territory and Gulf areas each year.

Given the backgrounders are supplied from the north, they are generally not able to reach the property until July – which leaves them in a situation where the oats are getting too long when they arrive and cutting out in Spring before the cattle reach feedlot entry weight.

“When you are trying to get cattle to go to a feedlot entry weight and you are 50kg short, you either have to put them into a rank grass paddock and feed them pellets, feed them supplement or put them into a feed pen and feed them silage,” Mr Newman said.

“But they can now just stay in the grazing paddock and utilise the lucerne.”

Mr Newman said updated varieties of grazing lucerne had made the plant viable in Central Qld, where it is generally not used.

“In this day and age, we have grazing lucernes that have been selected through grazing trials where they have lower crowns so they have better persistence,” he said.

“So, we can take advantage of some of that southern technology and adapt it into our environment. Our biggest problem is getting the right planting equipment so we get that plant established.”

The lucerne/oats is also part of a transitional phase on the property, which has a lot of land in fallow to control Indian couch grass. Mr Newman said the idea is to have cattle grazing until the end of the year before the grass is controlled and the property moves onto its next phase.

Oats to the belt line

Western Qld producer Josh Phelps has been growing oats on a property near Brigalow on the Darling Downs. While most of the area grows grain, Mr Phelps said it is just as profitable to grow oats for backgrounding cattle – with the top end going as bullocks and most as heavy feeders.

“This paddock is right on the Condamine River, I think god designed this paddock to grow oats,” Mr Phelps said.

“We deep rip the paddock once every second year because it does create a bit of compaction having those heavy cattle on that country. We have just piggy backed off the farmers in that area, because that part of the world is renowned for growing cereal crops.

“This year is as good as I have seen, it is about up to your belt line and just starting to go to head.”

Mr Phelps said he had reduced the area on oats and converted some of the property to other improved pastures, with all-weather grain bins in the paddock.

“We have a set up that we can mix our own grain in, you could call it a grain-assist model, and I have crunched the numbers and it works just as well,” he said.

“It works well with oats too because we normally have the cattle on at one/acre and I will see those cattle through and get a second feed until Christmas. I will take it back to one/two acres and put the grain bins in to get some more life out of that crop.”

Mr Phelps said the main reason for growing oats is enjorment.

“Growing oats is something you enjoy more than anything else. You go there in the middle of winter, there’s some frost on the ground and the cattle are still doing well. There’s nothing like having a paddock of bullocks on oats coming out the back end of Winter.

Just the right amount of rain

At Jandowae north of Dalby, Keith Sands’ annual oats crop has benefited from just the right amount rain followed by warm and then cool weather.

His usually strategy is to wean onto oats and, depending on the season, buy additional cattle in the 280kg range to take through to heavier feed-on weights around 480kg, or carry on to bullock weights.

Keith, an accountant who with wife Trina runs the Southern Queensland firm Sands & Associates Chartered Accountants, said feeding heifers through was another option this year, given the more attractive buy-price compared to steers and similar selling price at the processing end.

With oats planting costs similar to wheat at around $200 per acre (including diesel, seed, fallow spray and fertiliser), but wheat prices back to around $320/t, and good margins for finished cattle, oats was a favourable option for mixed farmers this year.

The cheaper cost of grain was also making paddock grain-feeding options like creep feeding more economically attractive this winter, he said.

Forage Brassica boosts seed mix

Further west at Wandoan, Dale Stiller’s oats crop has had a good start but “another inch or so of rain would be ideal” before putting cattle on the crop, he said.

He uses oats not only to boost winter grazing options but also to renovate buffel pastures around his property.

He has also added forage brassica to the seed mix, finding that it handles dry conditions better than oats while providing good feed for cattle, with the added plus that kangaroos and wallabies don’t tend to eat it.

“I buy cattle in for oats depending on what market is doing, and use the first feed off to fatten bought cattle, and then on the second growth give heifers on their first calf a start,” he explained to Beef Central. In years with plenty of feed weaners also will go onto oats.

Rotating oats from paddock to paddock every couple of years also serves as a key pasture renovation tool to break up pastures overtaken by buffel monocultures. “We will plant a paddock to oats for two years, leave it go back, planting Desmanthus or something like that, and plough another paddock.

“It breaks up that tight buffel pasture and gives the country a break for something else and allows you to establish a bit of extra stuff in before the buffel takes over again.”

He said this year was shaping as a good year to feed cattle on oats: “We’re on a rising market, which gives you a bit of hope.”

Australia’s highest oats crop

Just east of Guyra, Richard Post, Glenavon Angus, has already turned his 2025 oats crop – potentially the highest altitude oats crop in Australia at an elevation of 1350 metres – into kilograms of beef and lamb.

Before… the paddock the crop was sown dry into in mid Feb.

The crop was dry sown in mid-February and benefitted from good rain within two weeks and then “more beautiful in-crop rain” from the edge of Cyclone Alfred in March.

Just as fortuitously, the crop wasn’t exposed to its first frost until mid-June, much later than the usual late April timing when the feed value of local oats crops in the high country can typically cut out.

The good rain, late onset of frosts and above average temperatures extended the productive oats growing season this year at Guyra by about six weeks.

With a mild autumn season the crop was verging on going to head so the Posts stocked it heavily with 1100 bought-in trade steers, and also second cross lambs, to make the most of the bumper crop.

After… just prior to first graze in late April.

Richard said the performance of the steers was slightly below expected, with weight gains averaging about 0.9kg per day, below what some vendor bred Glenavon Angus steers were doing at similar weights on older established pastures nearby. “If I’d had my time again I would have put my own steers on there, so that they did they’re 1.5-2kg, and probably cut my trade steers and moved on.”

The Posts also use annual oats and ryegrass crops to clean up paddocks on some surrounding farms they own within 5km of their property Outer Bald Blair. “We put an oats rye-grass crop in for a year or two to clean the paddock up to get into a permanent pasture which is part of bigger picture pasture renovation,” Richard explained.

Tamworth crop creates trade lamb opportunites

Tamworth-based Forbes Boydell has been taking advantage of the big oats crop by putting the yearly weaner drop on a smaller part of the property and ramping up the family’s trade lamb business.

“At the moment we are running above average, the frost last week pulled us up in a hurry, but there is still feed in front of them,” Mr Boydell said.

“We are normally running about 30-35 DSE on our crop and this year we are running about 40 DSE. But we are starting to offload next week.”

The family breeds Angus and F1 Wagyu cattle that are sold as heavy feeder steers and heifers. Mr Boydell said oats are planted every year for the weaners, with some country planted to lucerne and some wheat taken through to grain.

“We have more lambs than we budgeted for and we have been able to squeeze our cattle up onto less country because of how much feed that grew. We have bought an extra 1200 lambs.