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Plant/Animal Production

Pasture production on the South West Slopes

This material addresses aspects of the following syllabus outcome:

A student:

H2.1 describes the inputs, processes and interactions of plant production systems.

Syllabus content areas addressed in this material include:

Students learn about:

plant production systems
- the constraints imposed by environmental factors, including light, temperature, available moisture, oxygen/carbon dioxide ratios, wind and biotic factors on plant growth, development and production
- the interaction of genotype with environment and the consequent opportunities for plant productivity

Students learn to:

analyse and interpret agricultural data, for example animal performance measures, climatic information and crop production data.

Source: Board of Studies NSW (1999) Stage 6 Agriculture Syllabus

In the example titled, Pasture Production on the Northern Tablelands, you worked through an activity that modelled the skills of summarising information in a table, drawing graphs and drawing conclusions. In this activity you will use climatic data and estimated growth rates for pastures to draw tables and graphs and form conclusions about pasture growth on the North West slopes of NSW. Before you complete this activity you should have studied the example Pasture Production on the Northern Tablelands.

South West Slopes

Choose a site and gather the climatic data for a region.
Cootamundra is located within the South West Slopes. In order to obtain the climatic average data you should visit the Bureau of Meteorology (Climatic Averages) web site and locate the average climatic data for Cootamundra. This data should include:
- mean daily maximum temperature
- mean daily minimum temperature
- mean rainfall
for each month of the year.

You should then draw up a table and record your climatic data in it.

Answer
Draw a graph presenting the climatic average data.
Just as the graph was drawn for Glen Innes in Pasture producton on the Pasture Production on the Northern Tablelands., presenting the climatic average data, you should draw a graph presenting the climatic average data for Cootamundra..

Answer

Draw a graph of estimated growth rate of pastures on the South West Slopes.
Below is presented a table showing the estimated pasture growth rate of specific pasture types for the South West Slopes. You should use this data to draw your own pasture growth curve as was presented in 3. for the Pasture Production on the Northern Tablelands.

Estimated pasture growth rate of specific pasture types (kg DM/ha/day) for the South West Slopes

Pasture species	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
phalaris/subterranean clover	5	7	16	25	24	17	16	26	47	64	43	12
cocksfoot/subterranean clover	9	8	16	25	24	17	16	26	47	64	43	15
lucerne/subterranean clover	12	10	17	28	26	14	11	25	49	69	54	21
annual grass/subterranean clover	3	4	10	23	24	14	10	25	45	64	35	7
native grass without fertisliser	8	6	5	11	10	4	3	3	7	15	23	13
native grass with maintenance fertisliser	11	9	11	15	14	14	10	7	17	35	26	14
oats	0	0	0	0	14	29	25	28	43	64	48	0

Answer

Compare the graph presenting the climatic average data with the graph showing the estimated growth rate of pastures on the South West Slopes..
You should compare the pasture growth graph for the South West Slopes with the climatic average data for Cootamundra and draw some conclusions as was done for the Northern Tablelands.
Answer