Banana graziers regenerating cropping land to e stablish Leucaena and healthy pastures in sodic soils

Held at two properties in Banana, more than 100 local graziers and industry representatives attended the workshop at Ruth and Tom Wagner's Fairlea property and Myles Ballentine's Banana property.

The Wagner family say they're managing their grazing operating a bit different to the mainstream, and have taken a rundown property to something more sustainable.

"When we first arrived here, the soils were devoid of biology, and to get that going with permanent pastures was something that we were interested in," Ms Wagner said.

"We improved the pastures and the soil by planting legumes and perennial grasses so that there's something growing all year round.

"We found there was a problem with getting old farming country back to perennial grasses.

"When we heard the idea of seed coating with biological products to give the seeds the best possible start in life, we thought that was worth a try."

In a very short time, the Wagners have gone from one paddock, with no fences to 14 paddocks, fully fenced, laneways and have also established leucaena paddocks, with centre pivots operating.

"We're a lot focused on winter cropping, cover cropping and multi species pastures, which has made a big difference to our grazing operation and something we haven't done before," Ms Wagner said.

Graziers also visited Myles Bellantine's property at Banana, where he has ventured into biological farming to improve his grazing operation.

Mr Bellantine said a lot of the graziers were finding inspiration for what his family was doing in Banana.

"It's a lot more exciting than the way we were doing it.

"We're just finding there's more leftover in the bank, costs are a lot lower and our income and yields getting higher in more challenging conditions."

The Bellantines have strived to rehydrate their landscape through various methods and have continued to improve their soil by building it through natural means.

Mick Alexander of Grazing Bestprac said the field day was about understanding soil health and biology in the soil.

"We're going through a period now where we're able to see the incremental growth in graziers taking up natural farming again," Mr Alexander said.