Hydroponic fodder proves water-wise
AN agricultural start-up has started raising capital to fund a Geelong-based trial of an innovative hydroponic fodder system being hailed as a major water saver and drought breaker.
The three-year trial being planned at Deakin University is intended to prove the system for growing hydroponic fodder is commercially viable for major farms and feedlots.
A key to the Continuous Grass system is the scale and affordability it says it can achieve by growing grass mats from sprouted grain in outdoor bays as distinct from traditional hothouses.
Founder Neil O’Keefe said it was planned for funding of the $1.5 million trial to be shared by Deakin University, the State and Federal governments (grants permitting) and Continuous Grass, which has started to raise its $500,000 contribution to allow the trial to start.
Mr O’Keefe said he would like to develop the business in Geelong with its partner, Geelong North engineering company Austeng, ready to install the system at Deakin’s agriculture precinct at Waurn Ponds.
He said the “demonstration farm” would be the first of its type in the world and would test and validate the system to determine optimum results.
Traditional hydroponic systems for turning dry grain into grass mats, mostly using shelf and tray systems, have worked on small-scale farms but the high capital and labour costs have made them prohibitive for commercial use by major operators.
“We have succeeded in finding a way of taking it out of the temperaturecontrolled indoor infrastructure and growing it outside,” Mr O’Keefe said.
“We know how to grow this grass now in large areas, because we are not constrained by the size of the shed and we are not constrained by vertical stacking (of shelves and trays).”
He said half of Australia’s average annual grain crop of about 26 million tonnes was fed to animals.
“Grain has become a high-cost input and a highcost substitute for pasture across the five big industries: beef, dairy, lamb, pork and poultry,” he said.
Mr O’Keefe said hydroponic systems on small farms had produced 40 per cent savings in grain, 90 per cent savings in water, healthier animals as they were bred to eat grass, improved stocking capacity and increased protection against drought.
He said the demonstration farm at Deakin was needed to prove to the industry that the system’s capital and operating costs, and the cost of converting the grain to grass compared extremely favourably with conventional hydroponic systems, making them commercially viable at scale for the first time.
“The sums now add up for the big player to invest in this technology,” he said.