Preparing pasture for cropping

I'm planning to grow some crops on my father's land which is pasture in NW Tasmania. I'll put in some garlic and broad beans very soon and then I have more time to prep for spring where I'd like to grow maize, corn, buckwheat, quinoa and veggies. We bought a rotary hoe to help clear the grass but once the cropping area is established, I hope to maintain it with mulch. I'm looking for advice or suggestions about how best to approach this.

For the spring crops I'm thinking to prepare the area this autumn.

Plan so far:
Once the rains start and the soil softens, I'll add gypsum and dolomite lime (soil is slightly acidic clay).
Till an area to hopefully remove grass (never used a rotary hoe before).
Water in microbial solutions when it is raining over winter (JMS, Compost tea)

I'm just a bit nervous about cultivating an area too early and having it just grow back but I'd like to give it a good prep of microbes before planting. Maybe it would be good to till this autumn, apply microbes through winter, then till again in spring just before planting? Any advice is much appreciated.

Depending on the type of grass, you might be able to chop and drop since it's coming into winter and the growth rate will be slowing. Broad beans make a good undersown crop in existing pasture and if the grass is already knocked back from the topping, they will shade it out if planted densely enough. Avoiding the rotary hoe will save you some time and money, and preserve the soil life and structure. If you get a wet winter, tilled ground can turn to anaerobic mire pretty quickly.

I'm not sure if broad beans will shade out everything but I might try one area that way. I was thinking to till only once and from then on keep it mulched.

The pasture is quite short grass now with cracks in the clay in areas, I'm not sure if that's because the grass was too short in dry summer or if it happens every year but I have a feeling it's because it was too short and I'm not sure if the cracks will close or if it will stay compacted without one tilling. A big learning curve ahead.

We have some hay that was slashed and raked into windrows to top the bed, but that will have grass seed in, and I'm not sure if I should use it.