Land Water and Wool Case Study: Rick Robertson, Bairnsdale

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An East Gippsland farm three kilometers inland from the coast isn’t a place one would normally expect to find a paddock of Old Man saltbush, but that doesn’t worry Rick Robertson.

Rick is just pleased to have found the solution to a perennial shortage of summer and autumn feed for his 7000 Merino sheep. Eight years of tough seasons meant things had to change on the 1000 hectare fine wool Merino stud, ‘Gracemere’, that Rick and Jenny Robertson and their three daughters run 25 kilometres from Bairnsdale.

In the past five years, they’ve diversified from a straight woolgrowing operation to running two thirds Merino ewes and one third joined to terminal prime lamb sires, with the remainder of the country cropped to winter wheat, barley and triticale, and a portion set aside for agroforestry.