Inside Wagyu farm’s ambitious plan to achieve record marbling scores
The Harris family's 18-year quest for perfect Wagyu beef has shattered traditional farming wisdom, with their 10,000-strong herd hitting extraordinary quality benchmarks.
Data driven decision making and a family ethos has the Sunland Cattle Co Wagyu operation in Central Queensland poised to achieve its goal of a herd average of 9 plus for marbling – the highest rank in the Australian grading system for Wagyu beef.
Owned by the Harris family, the 10,000 head full blood Wagyu herd has been 18 years in development and features prominently in carcass awards at major competitions.
Jennifer Harris, a director of Sunland, said they were currently awaiting results from the latest EKKA carcass competition which will be released in August.
She said they had their preliminary results from the 18 animals entered and fed for the past year and were excited by the figures of 6 animals marbling at 9+ and 5 marbling 9. Their top steer achieved a 9+ marbling score and a carcass weight of 492 kilograms on excellent feed conversion which aligns with their goal of producing beef with exceptional marbling and substantial carcass weight.
Jennifer could quickly pull up the breeding history of the steer going back generations, its direct sire being a home-grown bull Sunland Itoshigeami H2241. “Our own bred bull has delivered outstanding results – a clear testament to the strength of our breeding program,” she said.
It is this passion for genetics and data which is the backbone of Sunland Cattle Co’s breeding program, which is based around every animal being individually assessed and sires selected based on past progeny and production results.
With a herd of 10,000 full blood Wagyus, it is a considerable job and one which feeds into Jennifer’s strengths of having been a school principal who focused on data to make informed decisions before joining the family business full-time four-years ago. Full blood Wagyu means there has never been any cross-breeding and their lineage can be traced back to Japan. All Sunland Cattle Co cattle are DNA tested and are registered with the Australian Wagyu Association.
AIM HIGH
Sunland Cattle Co was founded by Jennifer’s parents Paul and Clare Harris. She said her father was a chartered accountant, which had probably given them a different farming perspective compared to some families which had decades and generations of traditions and methods ingrained into them.
“We are not generational farmers and we’ve had lots to learn but we weren’t encumbered by having to do this or that just because of the past,” she said.
“Our philosophy is to always learn from experiences, work hard and aim high.”
Sunland has two properties in the Rockhampton region of Queensland – the 11,072ha station Old Bombandy at Valkyrie which has frontage to the Isacc River; and the 6868ha property known as Ten Mile which has frontage to Mackenzie River.
Both parcels of land are in strong and usually reliable rainfall districts of 650mm a year.
While the Sunland Cattle Co was founded in 1991, Jennifer said they began focusing on Wagyu in 2007 as a way to move into higher quality beef which had the potential to sell for price premiums.
At its peak when the cattle market was booming in Australia quality Wagyu feeder steers commanded up to $14/kg liveweight.
Today the Wagyu feeder steer market is trending around $6.50/kg liveweight and traditionally holds a price rate above the British feeder steer market.
But Jennifer acknowledged the Wagyu cattle industry is subject to the same seasonal and global supply and demand fluctuations as other livestock markets, and ultimately their control came from producing a consistent quality product.
“If you are getting consistently good results then you can negotiate to get a better price – we focus on producing animals with a marble score 8.2 and above and our aim is for all our cattle to marble 9+,” she said.
“We want to consistently produce the best of the best and in large numbers.”
To achieve this performance, carcass feedback is vital and is a requirement Sunland builds into all its sales of feeder steers and heifers which are sold at weights of 400-460kg liveweight.
This information is then analysed and correlated back to the dam and sire so informed breeding decisions can be made. Sunland also employs a cattle geneticist who is invaluable in the advice given for future matings and herd development.
“A lot of work goes in the background of what we do in regards to bloodlines and matching cows to bulls to achieve the results we want, and all this has to be done while retaining genetic diversity across the herd,” she said.
Jennifer described it as “quite a juggling act” to balance out the ideals of high marbling against other desired traits of frame size and mature weight, feed conversion, eye muscle area, the melting point of the intramuscular fat which is integral to the high-end Wagyu eating experience, plus production traits of fertility, structural soundness and temperament.
And all this has to be incorporated within the confines of a fairly limited pool of Wagyu genetics available to those of outside of Japan.
“It involves decisions made with a team approach and lot of spread sheets and analysis.”
FEEDBACK GOAL
The herd is artificially inseminated, often 490 females at a time and are sorted into tight calving windows of two-weeks to aid in management. The company employs eight full time staff and pride themselves on their family ethos which retains long-term employees and enhances the knowledge of the herd and its production.
Jason Kelly is the hands-on manager of Sunland Cattle Co, and he and his wife Betina have worked on the properties since 1998.
This involves managing the properties feed base which is based around more than 5000ha of established leucaena, which is considered one of the most productive legumes for tropical grazing areas. Other pasture species include buffel and green panic.
Silage is conserved as a drought mitigation tool, and in the last testing dry period they dug up a pit which had been underground 18 years.
“Through the development of improved pastures and more leucaena paddocks we’ve significantly improved our carrying capacity and ability to conserve feed,” Jennifer said.
“Our steers typically gain around 0.8kg per day, with even higher weight gains observed when grazing in the leucaena paddocks.”
In a favourable season, conception rates in the cow herd can be as high as 98 per cent with around 60 per cent of the female herd conceiving on the first round of AI.
Jennifer said they were now starting to use sexed semen to further develop the herd, allowing for more targeted breeding of heifer replacements and sale bulls, with the balance then producing feeder steers which are more valuable and easily managed compared to cull heifers.
Showing the depth of the herd data they collect, Jennifer said they had been excited recently to receive carcass feedback from a consignment of older cull cows sold for meat processing.
Some of these cows had achieved marble scores of 8 and 9 off grass.
“It shows the potential of the cattle as those marble scores were achieved without long term feeding on grain,” she said.
“Our marble scores have shown consistent improvement over time and we’ve produced Wagyu that have scored as high as 15 on the Japanese marbling scale,” she said.
“The bulls we breed must consistently sire progeny with exceptional marbling as our long-term goal is for all our Full blood Wagyu to achieve marbling scores of 9 or higher.”
Sunland is part of the Australian Wagyu progeny test program, and embraces all opportunities to further develop the breed and test their cattle in cattle trials and carcass competitions.
In recent years they have won several awards at the Royal Queensland Show paddock to plate competition, including in 2023 when Sunland won the pen of six Wagyu challenge class.
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