Justin and Kelly Mann farm with their young family and Justin’s parents Bruce and Chris at Beverley. Somehow they still manage to run their 3700ha farm business around their many community commitments to the local hockey and football clubs as well as community groups such as the Beverley playgroup.
Situated in the Avon Arc region with steep granite country and running a mixed enterprise with merinos and cross breeds as well as cropping wheat, barley, oats and legumes Kelly and Justin are keen to make better use of their rocky gullies and are interested in investigating how summer crops and perennials can fit into their farm business.
They recently said: “Our farm is dissected by creeks and gullies which feed the Dale River on the Western end of the farm. We also have a lot of non arable rocky granite country. We believe the gully lines and hills could become a lot more productive through the use of fodder shrubs and alternate pastures.”
The first step in their partnership with Wheatbelt NRM as part of the Optimising Fodder project will be to work with a farm planner to investigate how some of the ground cover options such as summer crops, perennial shrubs and pastures could be used to provide feed options over summer as well as tackling some soil health constraints such as soil acidity and wind erosion.
Over the next four years we will be working with Kelly and Justin to achieve their goals and are keen to share their story with the Wheatbelt community. Keep up to date with their progress as well as our seven other demonstration farms by registering your interest with Bonny Dunlop Heague 0477 885 514 bdunlop@wheatbeltnrm.org.au.