Abstract

Coastal pastures on King Island perform below their potential mainly because of the lack of nitrogen,due to the absence of legumes. This demonstration was therefore initiated to assess the potentialfor productivity improvement from ensuring nitrogen sufficiency. This was achieved by applyingnitrogen fertiliser and measuring live weight responses by grazing cattle.Pasture production increased in response to the addition of nitrogen fertiliser. However the cattlelive weight response was less than that observed in other similar areas of Tasmania making theapplication of nitrogen uneconomic. A possible explanation is the absence of companion legumeswith the consequence of reduced pasture quality.Given there is about 16 000 ha of coastal legume deficient pasture on King Island, the results of thisproject can be directly translated to improve productivity of this part of the island. Increased stockingrate arising from adoption of these results will increase the throughput of animals through the localabattoir with associated increases in processing efficiency and benefits to the local island economy.