Grazing sheep show appetite for native plants Jason Emms at Monarto, east of Adelaide, where he has discovered that sheep are thriving on a saltbush-enhanced diet. Picture: Kelly Barne Source: TheAustralian THE discovery that many species of native bushes and shrubs provide much better food for grazing sheep than previously thought has won a team of Australian scientists a Eureka science prize. The scientists found that farmers in southern Australia grazing sheep on clover and grass pastures could boost their production and profitability by 24 per cent if they added rows of saltbush, blue bush and goosefoot to their paddocks. Besides offering chefs the opportunity to buy popular pre-salted "saltbush-fed lamb," the researchers found eating native perennial shrubs cut the methane emissions of sheep and reduced harmful greenhouse gases. The greater use of sown native shrubs over the dry summer months when there was little green grass available in medium and low rainfall areas such as the West Australian wheatbelt, the Victorian Mallee, NSW Riverina and eastern South Australian also helped prevent soil erosion, made the best use of limited rainfall and removed the need for farmers to buy expensive hay. Jason Emms, leader of the Enrich project, said the natives in the study were all drought tolerant, resilient, palatable to sheep and long-lived. He said farmers would only need to sow rows of the bushes in their paddocks perhaps once every 10 or 20 years, making the system highly sustainable and cost-effective. "And because they are native plants and are adapted to grow over a variety of environments and soils, planting these species such as saltbush also allows farmers to utilise more marginal soils or parts of their properties that previously they might not have got production off," he said. So it's a very sustainable practice that provides feed for sheep over the driest months of summer and early autumn and also makes the best use of water and the farm. Dr Emms, who heads a team from the South Australian Research and Development Institute that has worked on the project with the CSIRO and the Future Farming Co-operative Research Centre, said it had been thought that species such as saltbush contained little nutrition for sheep. But the trials had identified six different types of native bushes that, when eaten together, each contributed different vitamins, minerals and proteins that made a healthy feed mix for sheep. Lamb from the native-bush-fed sheep is also higher in vitamin E, making the meat more nutritious and tender, and giving it an attractive deeper-red colour.