About Anameka Saltbush
We developed Anameka Saltbush as an ideal supplementary feed for livestock through years of research and development with government and industry. Now we’re expanding it to new regions across Australia to help improve farmers’ drought resilience.
The challenge
Filling feed shortages
Shrub systems are used by cattle and sheep producers to meet annual feed gaps which typically occur over summer and autumn when there is low rainfall. Feed shortages can be extended or exacerbated during a drought.
Shrub systems can help meet livestock energy, protein, vitamin and mineral requirements.
Hundreds of thousands of Anameka Saltbush seedlings ready for planting.
Our response
Anameka Saltbush for supplementary forage
Introducing Anameka Saltbush, a specially selected drought-tolerant native shrub. CSIRO and partners developed the saltbush as an ideal long-term supplementary feed for sheep and cattle. Old man saltbush grows across Australia’s arid interior, and the adaptation that helps it tolerate drought also improves its tolerance to salty soils. Anameka has a higher nutritional value than standard saltbushes, greater palatability and can improve landscape and soil health.
Our partners include Meat and Livestock Australia, Australian Wool Innovation and the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund (FDF). Together, we have tested and demonstrated Anameka systems in new areas, to support their adoption. Following several successful years in Western Australia (WA), we’re driving adoption in new Australian regions to support farmers and reduce drought impacts.
Our research in WA shows that Anameka offers 20 per cent higher economic returns than standard saltbushes, particularly in relatively dry years. Advantages include greater wool and meat production and reduced supplementary feed costs.
Read about the history of Anameka’s development here: Saltbush Development Narrows the Field. Anameka shrub systems also offer opportunities to provide shade, shelter and essential vitamins and minerals to livestock during climatic extremes. You can read more on this subject via Meat & Livestock Australia’s website: Shade and shelter project.
Anameka shrub systems also offer opportunities to provide shade, shelter and essential vitamins and minerals to livestock during climatic extremes.
We also have active partnerships with Chatfield’s Tree Nursery (WA) Tulla Natives (NSW), Select Carbon, Meat & Livestock Australia, WA government’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Australian Wool Innovation, Murdoch University, University of Western Australia and several producer groups across Australia.
We recently developed a ‘how-to’ guide for establishing shrub systems and saltland pastures, read it here: Optimising establishment and utilisation of saltbush-based forage systems.
Our progress
Taking saltbush east
In 2023, farmers and agriculturalists [lanted hundreds of thousands of Anameka shrubs in new regions across Australia’s southeast, including New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
We are demonstrating how Anameka can be used in other parts of Australia and providing farmers with the tools and knowledge to realise long-term benefits. We are helping to break the misconception that saltbush is only suited to saline soils with research sites on non-saline clay and sandy soils.
We’re demonstrating how Anameka can be used in other parts of Australia.
The results
Driving wider adoption across Australia
Our Drought Resilience work is building on the success of six million shrubs that farmers have planted since Anameka became commercially available in 2015.
Anameka Saltbush aims to support farmers through drought by helping to improve soil quality, provide ecosystem functions and improve the profitability of degraded land or land that has marginal value for crop production.
We aim to see Anameka adopted more widely across Australia in the future and are working on a seed-based method for its establishment. We are also working with Meat and Livestock Australia through the Transformational Feedbase project to develop legume and grass-based understory systems to complement woody shrubs.
The Edible Shelter project with Murdoch University, University of Western Australia and NSW Department of Primary Industries is quantifying the opportunity to use Anameka systems to reduce lamb mortality associated with cold stress.
Anameka has a higher nutritional value than standard saltbushes, greater palatability and can help regenerate the land.
Tackling the cost and risk during establishment
While Anameka and other native shrubs are incredibly tough when established – and remaining productive for 20+ years, they can be challenging to establish by seed. That is why we recommend nursery-raised seedlings to optimise success and minimise the time the paddock is ungrazed.
Good seedlings, planted in suitable soils with the best methodology, (see our guide Optimising establishment and utilisation of saltbush-based forage systems) should have 95% success and allow controlled grazing within 9 months of planting. Unfortunately, old man saltbush produces tiny seeds that are less tough than seedlings.
We are working with CSIRO’s Drought Project and colleagues at Curtin University and WA’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development to investigate the seed ecology of saltbush, identify temperate and moisture requirements for germination and establishment and develop seed coatings to improve seed flow in machinery and enable better seed placement.
We have also worked with leading producers in the Meat and Livestock Australia Transformational Feedbase Project to reduce the cost of establishment by planting Anameka into the final crop prior to the paddock being removed from a cropping system.
Anameka Saltbush is one of many farming system innovations that CSIRO’s Drought Resilience Mission is scaling to help Australia’s agricultural sector adapt and transform through future drought cycles.
Where to buy Anameka Saltbush
CSIRO’s commercial saltbush supply partners include Tulla Natives, and Chatfield’s Tree Nursery.