Coolringdon
Coolringdon is run by the John and Betty Casey Research Trust as a working farm promoting best practice primary production and land management on the Monaro.
Coolringdon is run on a well-planned system of rotational grazing through improved pasture, native pasture and lucerne which is designed to ensure optimal production levels, without degrading the paddocks. This helps maintain a good level of groundcover, in part to help prevent the incursion of weeds such as African Lovegrass.
In order to achieve this desired production level, Coolringdon needed to slightly increase the overall amount of improved pasture and identified two paddocks of degraded native pasture as being suitable for this purpose.
Management was keen to work within the legislative framework for native groundcover. It sought and received the right advice from Local Land Services which provided the clarity and confidence needed to progress plans for the property.
"The trustees want to make it a model farm that matches environmental values, the preservation of those things to the greatest extent profitable, but it also of course must be profitable."
– James Litchfield, founding trustee, Coolringdon