Planting 10 per cent of the farm to tagasaste to replace hand feeding in autumn appears to be economically robust regardless of wool price. Establishing and maintaining greater areas of the farm is only economically viable under good wool prices. It would require 30 per cent of the farm to be established to tagasaste to provide summer and autumn feed for all sheep. Greater areas planted to tagasaste means that the tagasaste is being used in winter and spring when annual pasture is normally abundant. This can cause several problems including making it difficult to use all the tagasaste and keep the plantation under control and productive.
Sheep running predominantly on tagasaste tend to develop the habit of bark stripping.
Also the feed that the tagasaste is replacing in late winter and spring is of low economic value compared with an autumn browsing strategy. In trial work on up to 6 m row spacing, an increase in pasture grown in the inter-row caused a corresponding decrease in production from the tagasaste. Consequently there was no overall increase in dry matter production by promoting inter-row pasture but the diversity may be beneficial. One exception was with blue lupins in the inter-row. In this instance the lupin seed would have been supplying a high protein supplement to the tagasaste.