On track to carbon neutral

The farm undertakes research programs to improve the productivity of Victorian dairy farms.

These research programs are focused on improving and diversifying a pasture-based grazing system, improving herd health, productivity and management, and achieving carbon neutrality in a grass-based dairy system.

Professor Joe Jacobs is research director at Ellinbank and recently addressed a group of farmers at the research farm at Ellinbank.

The 230 hectare farm on which the research is undertaken hosts a 150-head self-replacing commercial milking herd, plus replacement calves and heifers.

“We started on the journey of carbon neutrality in 2019 and set a target of trying to achieve it by the end of next year, 2026,” Joe said.

While COVID-19 affected the early years of application, he is still hopeful of achieving those goals and being able to produce a data-driven report by the end of next year.

One of the first installations to produce renewable energy was solar panels. The energy production modes have since diversified.

“We’ve made significant inroads into the alternative energy options,” Joe said.

“We’ve got solar energy, batteries, windmills and hydro-energy production.

“All of the side-by-sides on the farm are now electric. We’re also looking at other options for other farm vehicles.

“More solar modules will be installed next year.”

There is also an anaerobic digester on the farm.

“We’re just trying to find out what its potential for use is,” Joe said.

“We know we’ve got a really good, well-functioning first pod.

“In fact, when we draw the manure out of that to put into the digester, the s**t has already been digested.

“We know the digester works, because we’ve changed the collection point to directly behind the dairy yards and taken fresh manure in, and the digester still works well.

“Now we have to reconfigure how we get the best waste stream into the digester for it to work effectively, run the methane through the gas system, convert it to electricity and supplement the dairy’s energy use.”

Joe said the ideal scenario would be to also use the waste streams from the digester to replace inorganic fertiliser, or use it as a soil conditioner on the farm.

“The idea of the digester is to take all of the carbon through microbial digestion and produce a very low carbon product that is still high in potassium, phosphorous, nitrogen and other minerals that can replace us buying in fertiliser,” he said.

“It will be in an organic form and should be longer lasting and slower release.”

Some further research will measure the rate this fertiliser would be taken up by plants.

The solid component from the digester would also be used to add organic matter into the soil, through soil amelioration.

“But the big thing for us is measuring and countering the enteric methane produced on this farm,” Joe said.

“Enteric methane is over 60 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions.

“We will never eliminate it. Let’s be realistic. You cannot stop a ruminant producing methane.

“Producing methane is what a cow is designed to do. In their ecological development over however many millions of years, their microbial system includes bugs that are important in the mixture.

“They are a multi-stomached animal designed to eat forage, cellulose, poor quality feeds and they produce methane.”

Joe said to balance the methane emissions that naturally emit from cows on the farm, the research farm had actively invested in diversified renewable energy production.

There has also been some investment in longer term returns.

“We also wanted more trees on the property,” he said.

That led to planting five hectares of trees that were immediately predated by deer, wombats and rabbits.

“So we’ve begun planting them again,” Joe said.