Coastal cattle clean up
IN ORDER to be the best, you must compete against the best.
Yulgilbar Pastoral Company general manager Rob Sinnamon described the competition he faced at the RNA Paddock to Palate as “strong”.
But that just makes his victory all the more sweeter.
“This form of competition gives a great opportunity to benchmark our genetics against many of the best and most respected seed stock operations of most main stream breeds in Australia, and we always look forward to competing to gauge the commercial relevance of our genetics,” he said.
The Mort and Co sponsored competition, which is the richest of its kind in the nation, with $45,000 in prize money on offer, attracted 770 head of cattle this year.
David and Prue Bondfield’s pen of six winning charolais X angus had an average daily gain (ADG) of 2.95kg in Class 37, just beating Yulgilbar Pastoral Company’s santa gertrudis X charolais, which tipped the scales with an ADG of 2.90kg.
It was Yulgilbar Pastoral Company’s time to shine in Class 38, winning the 70-day class for the second year in a row, with its pen of santa gertrudis X angus weighing in with an ADG of 3.27kg.
Rob has been managing Yulgilbar, situated in Baryulgil in New South Wales, with his wife Lorraine since 2002.
He said the top results helped disprove some myths.
“These commercially driven results in both export and domestic classes disproved the myth that Yulgilbar cattle would not grow; and further proved that the performance bred in these coastal bred cattle enabled them to rival the best performance of all breeds.”
RNA Beef Cattle Committee chairman Gary Noller said the competition had been bringing the nation’s top cattle producers together for 19 years, with great results.
“The high quality of genetics entered into the competition this year presented average daily gains higher than normal feedlot conditions,” he said.
“The RNA is dedicated to celebrating and championing agriculture and this competition really gives producers the chance to benchmark their hard work and get their beef out to the consumer.”
The three-phased Paddock to Palate competition now moves on from weight gain into its second phase – a carcass competition – followed by an MSA eating quality competition.