A small group of local beef producers and advisors joined Tweed Council’s farm walk held in Doon Doon in November 2025.
The focus of the morning was recovery from pasture dieback, but recovery is a much broader story for Tim and Anna Gilliland.
Tim and Anna run a commercial herd of 200 breeders and some trade cattle across 270 hectares of once rolling kikuyu hill country that has taken a few hits in recent years from fire (2019), flooding and landslips (2022) and the onset of pasture dieback in 2023.
Talking about the challenges
Informal conversation around the challenges of and recovery from pasture dieback was led by Tim and Anna, with helpful contributions from North Coast Local Land Services beef specialist Nathan Jennings and Terry Rose, who runs the pasture dieback project at Southern Cross University. This project is funded by Meat & Livestock Association and North Coast LLS.
Tim and Anna hosted one of the project’s trial sites which highlighted Narok Setaria and Signal Grass as two main dieback tolerant species to establish in less arable areas of deteriorating kikuyu pasture.
Tweed Council supported a drone seeding trial at the property, the results of which the group had a walk through, and discussed pasture establishment options and various challenges that arise in high rainfall coastal country.
Opportunity to learn
Feedback from producers expressed appreciation of the opportunity to listen to researchers and beef extension staff explain the latest understanding about how to manage dieback in an informal, friendly setting.
“This was the best pasture management event I’ve been to,” one local producer said.
“Everyone had an opportunity to ask questions and we received really useful and practical answers that cover the range of enterprises and landscapes that we are farming. No question was too weird.”
Thanks to Tweed Council Sustainable Ag team (Aiden and Eli) for organising and Tim and Anna for hosting.