Tasmanian farmer Mark Lambert’s years-long paddock transformation

Large-scale trials and extensive research has led to transformational change on Mark Lambert’s Tassie dairy farm.

Tasmanian dairy farmer Mark Lambert has transformed his farm with internet research, books, and curiosity.

The second-generation farmer at Sunnyside, Tasmania, has 570-head of Jersey cows, 80 Wiltipoll ewes for prime lambs, and 100 beef cattle.

His farm, with red basalt soil, is 300 metres above sea level, with four types of grasses, clovers and herbs for perennial multispecies. He farms about 400ha with an additional 100ha on agistment.

“We aim for a perennial multispecies because we can’t do annuals,” he said.

“It’s been a step by step process, my dad always used to include a little bit growing up. Multispecies was not foreign to me, but he didn’t do it as extensively as I do it these days.

“There was nobody else doing it, I was reading about it through internet research and from books.”

He said they trialled about 40 different multispecies on the farm about three years ago to monitor plant survival and reliability.

Mark said noticeable benefits included a longer growing season and rotation, with about 50 per cent longer than industry standard. He said his cattle also had fewer health issues.

Tasmanian dairy farmer Mark Lambert of Sunnyside.

“We haven’t seen any detriment to milk production,” he said.

“The biggest benefits have been in bird life, it’s gone a bit crazy. We’ve got bees on the farm, and the amount of honey they’re producing has nearly doubled.”

He said they started their organic certification process in 2016, which was official by 2019.

Mark said the farm took about nine months to transition from its nitrogen phase. They previously used dolomite and 20t/ha of lime which helped establish the multispecies.

“After we corrected the soil pH we could start to grow multispecies. Our first step down this path was the lime,” he said.

He said they were unable to spray chemicals while establishing the multispecies, so they slashed the crop after each grazing.

“No grain is fed on the farm. We don’t buy in any hay or silage, our cows are 100 per cent fed off our farm, excluding a few of our supplements,” he said.

Their supplements included seaweed, Himalayan rock salt and molasses. The dairy herd were milked once a day at about 6am and calves were hand-reared for the first time in 2024.

“That was interesting, it went really well, I was happy with how the calves went and really unhappy with how the finances went with how much milk they drink,” he said.

“I really quite enjoyed it.”