Tom Willson, owner of New Country KI - a pastoral farm on the island's Dudley Peninsula - first seeded kikuyu on 3 hectares four years ago after another farmer in the district had success.

Impressed by the results, he increased the kikuyu coverage by 25ha the following year, and then another 40ha the next season.

He is now looking to cover 30 per cent of his property, which includes 387ha of arable land for 4700 Merino ewes, weaners and wethers.

"The kikuyu responds well to rainfall and you have a green pick virtually all year round," Tom said.

"It's carrying a lot of stock, too. On 25ha it carried 980 weaners for six months with only hay for supplementary feed and no grain.

"Normally 980 sheep on that sort of country for that period of time would decimate it, but this didn't hurt it.

"We got 10 bales of fleece from that line and it averaged $15.15 a kilogram greasy, with a low vegetable matter of 0.4 for March shearing and about 42/newtons a kilotex strength."

To prepare for seeding, Tom sprayed Roundup in the first week of August and then again about three weeks later plus Dicamba and insecticide.

He seeded almost straight afterwards at 2kg/ha, using the variety Whittet, which he mixed with a 2kg/ha of Sona Masuri rice seed.

Tom uses the rice, costing $1.60/kg, to bulk-out the kikuyu seed so it runs though the seeder at the correct rate and does not separate.

"Kikuyu can be seeded any time from the first week of September through to mid-October," Tom said.

"And you get really good results in its first year because it uses subsoil moisture that is out of reach of annual pastures.

"We had a slightly patchy result in some areas this year due to the late-season germination of annual pasture."

Tom feeds the kikuyu with 200kg of NPK in mid-September and 120kg of a single superphosphate in late January.

His land is mostly sandy loam over ironstone rubble with clay underneath.

"You can give sandy paddocks a hard time without damaging them environmentally with this, and there is no drift," he said.

"A big rain does not wash off the surface soil, and the stock don't seem to eat the clover seed. You can just hammer and hammer it and it grows quite well on clay country."

*Full report in Stock Journal, January 26 issue, 2012.