University of Melbourne Farm Enterprise Carbon Balance
Models – Feed back on Application by Advisers
Graeme Anderson, Climate Extension Specialist, DEPI, Victoria, and Cam Nicholson introduce
the use of carbon calculators to measure carbon emissions and sequestration in broadacre
farm enterprises. Examples were ran through in small groups of project advisers and
covered low rainfall cropping, medium rainfall cropping, sheep in medium rainfall, and cattle
in high rainfall enterprises. Feed back on the models is presented below:
Medium Rainfall Sheep Enterprise
 Medium rain 500 to 700mm? Too high, should be 400 to 500mm
 No types of sheep (breed)
 Carbon content of wool (should be set??)
 Native veg (include)
 Soil carbon not considered
 Pastures should be considered as carbon sinks
High Rainfall Cropping Enterprise
 All sheep – 169t carbon E
 ½ sheep, ½crop – 160t
 70k N/ha (N fert high in crop)
 Increase input ↑ fert by 40 kgN (110 kgN) – 205t
 Decrease N to 50kg (50kg) – 137t
Low Rainfall Cropping Enterprise
 Rough & ready – good indication
 Do changes, make sensible farming system – comparisons/intake curve across year
for feed production
 Is 300 tn CO2 good or bad? Standards
 Green manures missing
 Canola missing
 Stubble retention pushing figures up! at long way
 How much carbon exporting off farm? – carbon balance
 Rotation effects
 What if’s – work through scenarios quickly
 Difficult to know boundaries for accounting
 Good extension tool
 Stubble/burning  very large difference
 Tool based on national accounts – CSIRO work
High Rainfall Cattle Enterprise
 Legume content of pastures?
 More rainfall options
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Tree planting – need mixes, % total better then X ha
Sensitivity tables
Supplementary feed allowance
Interactions of LW and feed quality - + time of sale ( & trading stock options), +
selling schedule
Efficiency is one thing but offset if increase numbers to utilise extra feed
Doesn’t ring alarm bells if data doesn’t make realistic results
ME rather than DMD
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