SOUTHERN NSW farmer Ian Ross never expected computers to be a major part of his working life.

But today he and his wife Lorraine run an expanding internet business, designed to match livestock producers with grass growers.

Called backgrounding. com.au, the website is used by beef and lamb producers, grain growers, lot feeders and stock agents across eastern Australia.

Ian came up with the idea for the site when trying to find different categories of stock to background on his own farm at Holbrook.

A fourth-generation farmer on the family's 1400ha property, Aberfeldy, Ian has used his own livestock and pasture skills to build the content of the website.

Ian and Lorraine grow 700ha of wheat, canola, lucerne and oat crops, and run 3500 Merino ewes joined to maternal composite and Merino rams. They also background 1000 cattle.

"I don't have an IT (information technology) background or an agricultural degree and only grabbed a mouse for the first time 12 years ago," Ian said.

"But I could see potential for a website where people could search out the appropriate category of cattle quickly, to match their available pasture for backgrounding.

"This helps people to plan their grazing management and pasture."

Ian has used components of Prograze and Grazing for Profit courses to develop his own strategy, which he calls "profitable grazing".

He said the essence of the formula was developing a mind-set where the farm became a grass and soil factory.

"We need to grow as much grass as possible as cheaply as we can using sunlight, then use that grass efficiently with livestock," Ian said.

By manipulating pastures through strategic grazing, Ian and Lorraine have increased their pasture use from 30-35 per cent to 65 per cent.

"One of the fears I have is that people are spending too much on seed and fertiliser, increasing their risk profile," Ian said.

"Many producers also focus too much on genetics, when livestock are purely about converting pasture to protein.

"We haven't changed anything on our farm - our biggest money-spinner has been grass.

"It was always there, but blew away in the wind in the past."

The Ross' grazing strategy involves destocking the property of cattle in the low pasture-growth phase, autumn.

The flock of 3500 sheep has the run of the farm in the autumn, resulting in a stocking rate of two ewes per hectare.

Vegetation cover is maintained, to stop wind erosion and retain soil moisture.

No animals are supplementary fed.

Alberfeldy is in a 675mm rainfall zone and has soil types ranging from grey podzolics to red loam.

The farm has been fenced into different land classes of hill country, mid slopes, creek flats and grey podzolics.

Each land class has a different grazing and cropping strategy.

The whole farm has been limed at 2.5 tonnes/ha, to correct the soil calcium-magnesium ratio.

"There is no magic wand here - it is all about balance," Ian said.

"What people do with their pastures now will have ramifications for the next 15-20 years.

"The point of backgrounding is to graze every plant in a paddock as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"As a guide, in the southern temperate zone, we graze a phalaris plant down to the two to three-leaf stage, or 800kg dry matter a hectare.

"The paddock is then destocked and the plant allowed to bulk up to tillering.

"Some of the pasture is allowed to self-seed at the end of the growth phase."

A graph matching the stocking rate with the pasture growth curve has become the logo for backgrounding.com.au

"Three years ago, I decided to start linking people who wanted to match grass with cattle by establishing this website," Ian said.

He worked with an IT consultant to develop a template, or home page, for the website and now manages it himself.

"I have a program that allows me to edit the website and I spend about one hour a week doing that," he said.

"It is an interactive site where people can email me with their livestock, grain or pasture details."

Users pay a flat fee or a per-head charge for the backgrounding information and legal contracts, as well as technical advice.

The site has been expanded to incorporate grain storage and marketing, lamb finishing systems and links with eastern seaboard cattle feedlots and a cattle investment company.

Available pasture is given a star rating from one to five, to give cattle owners confidence and enable advanced grass growers to extract a premium.

Ian said the site was mainly used by farmers in the 25 to 50-year-old age group, in a geographic spread from South Australia to Queensland.

"This age group wants information immediately at their fingertips," he said.

"The drought has taken a lot of backgrounding stock out of the system, but it is ticking along.

"It all comes back to getting people thinking about their grazing systems."