"Don't rush in" - that was the key message for landholders at last week's pasture recovery field day.
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Livestock health, grazing management, pasture recovery and cropping options were key topics at Tamworth Agricultural Institute where more than 80 landholders heard from co-hosts North West Local Land Services (NW LLS) and the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI).
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Gunnedah-based land services team leader at NW LLS, Dale Kirby, said if landholders didn't take the time to carefully plan their next steps, they could "undo all their good work".
"It's great to see some green around but a lot of it was, 'OK, this is what you're going to do with that green. We're probably not out of the woods yet'," Mr Kirby said.
"It's more rain than a lot of us have seen in a long time. People have been almost exhausted by how much they've been continually feeding stock, so this is fantastic change for them, but it doesn't rain grass ... we've still got a little bit of lag time before we've got enough grass in the paddock and enough good feed that they can stop supplementary feeding.
"Livestock need to transition gradually was the other key message - don't just stop your feeding and push them out into a green paddock."
Health of livestock was a big topic and NW LLS vet Heidi Austin warned farmers of the dangers of high-nitrate levels in emerging pastures and showed them how to carry out a nitrate test.
NW LLS senior land services officer, George Truman, said farmers needed to look at the big-picture and recorded rainfall did not equate to soil moisture.
"Plan as to why you need to do what you do - are you planting for spring plantings of tropicals? Are you filling a feed gap? Do you need quick feed or are you trying to manage your ground cover? We just put those questions to people," he said.
"It's still summer ... [so] if you plant something now, there's a high risk of it failing with high temperatures if we don't get any follow-up rain."
The last thing we want to see is them undo all their good work.
- Dale Kirby, NW LLS
Once tropical grasses have recovered, farmers can factor them into their plans for silage and feed because it "grows faster than stock can eat".
"It was productive to help people plan out the next three or four months and urge that little bit of caution for jumping in and restocking too early," Mr Kirby said.
Mr Truman said allowing the seeds to set was "important in rejuvenating some of the pastures" so farmers shouldn't let their stock loose to graze all of it.
Mr Kirby said the DPI's newly released Drought Recovery Guide was a resource farmers could use.
He said landholders should ask what lessons they have learnt from the drought and "start to build those into their businesses as they recover".
Mr Kirby said a number of beef producers were now entering into the sheep and wool market as "a means of quick cash flow", so that was another option to think about.
Mr Truman said it was "an opportunity to reassess your enterprise" and consider the most cost-effective way to go forward.