2021 National Landcare Conference and Awards

The 2021 National Landcare Conference and Awards that were due to take place in Darling Harbour, are now being hosted online due to the current COVID situation in Sydney.

The National Landcare Conference is the largest knowledge sharing convention for the Landcare community. This national event brings together Landcare groups and volunteers, landholders and farmers, Indigenous land and sea managers, Landcare facilitators and coordinators, educators, research agencies, natural resource management professionals, and other community environmental groups and individuals to share insights, learn and connect.

Hosted by Landcare champion and ABC TV host, Costa Georgiadis, the 2021 National Landcare Conference program includes Keynote John Anderson, guest speaker David Lindenmayer and plenary and panel speakers. They will be joined by a hugely diverse range of speakers from the Landcare community, government representatives and academics in 40 sessions across the four conference streams: Sustainable Agriculture; Environment and Climate Change; Community Partnerships in Action; and Landcare Impact.

Earlier this year an abstract was put together by TFS and submitted to present at the conference. The abstract outlined the Farming Forecaster tool and its benefits and was awarded a timeslot to present at the conference. TFS’ very own Vice Chair John Klem, will lead the presentation with Dr Patrick Mitchell from CSIRO. John and Pat are scheduled to present on Friday the 6th of August.

If you are interested in registering for the conference further details can be found using the links below:

Register – National Landcare Conference and Awards – National Landcare Conference

Program – Program – National Landcare Conference

Drench Resistance Test

We are fortunate to have been given permission to make available the results from TFS member Kenneth Wheelwright’s, recent drench resistance testing.

Wheelwright FECRT report

We thank Kenneth and his family for making these available and sharing these resources with TFS members.

Please treat these results with care – we have permission to make them available to TFS members.

Winning With Weaners Workshop

Nutrien in Crookwell are hosting a Winning with Weaners workshop on the 10th August at the Crookwell Services Club. We had some TFS family member’s participate in the recent Winning with Weaners workshop hosted by the Goulburn Young Farmers Group in May this year, and reports were that it was a worthwhile workshop.

The Winning With Weaners workshop aims to reduce weaner ill thrift and mortality which has been estimated to cost the industry approximately $188 million annually with most of this estimate as a result of production losses. This practical workshop will help identify key management strategies that will assist you in improving the performance of your Merino weaners, thereby optimising their performance in your flock for their lifetime.

Bookings are essential through the link below.

Bookings: Winning With Weaners – CROOKWELL Tickets, Tue 10/08/2021 at 9:00 am | Eventbrite

Healthy Soils Workshop 5

We recently held the 5th Healthy Soils workshop in the series, with Jim, Nathan and Madi from Graminus Consulting. This workshop looked at experimenting on farm and the best ways to do this. In addition to the workshop handout which you can access below, one of the key messages delivered when looking to carry out a trial on farm, is to:

  • Keep it simple – don’t try and answer too many questions in one trial.

Workshop 5 Handout

For the next workshop attendees indicated, that in addition to re-visiting Merrill to view the trial results, spending some time looking at excel and how it can help you manage your soils data would be of benefit. If you have any specific issues with excel please send them in just prior to the workshop and we will forward to Jim.

Grassland Society of NSW Inc

1/7/2021 – UPDATE – The NSW Grassland society conference is now a virtual conference. With the current COVID situation they have made the decision to go online. The conference will be streamed live on the 20th and 21st July and will now cost $120. The farm tours which were part of the original plan will take place later in the year.

The link to book for the conference is below:

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing?eid=749859&

Further information can be found in this flyer: The NSW Grassland Society Virtual Conference

Original Post below:

The Grassland Society of NSW is holding its 32nd conference in July. The conference is to be held over two days at the Mittagong RSL. The below link takes you to the flyer with further information and registration details.

Grassland Society of NSW A4 Flyer for 2021 Conference – web FINAL

On day one of the conference, Phil Graham of Graham’s Advisory will be presenting a session on Farming Forecaster. This session will look at how Farming Forecaster assists producers in assessing risks.

If any TFS members are able to attend we would love to hear your thoughts on the conference.

Independent research confirms significant cost of using ineffective drenches on herd performance

TFS Industry member Virbac, recently released an editorial after they partnered with two independent research groups to look at the effectiveness of cattle drenches. A copy of the editorial can be found here Virbac Australia – Cydectin Platinum editorial. The study looks at the response in cattle to a range of pour-on drenches with a dual active drench resulting in heavier animals throughout the study.

TFS thanks Virbac for their continued support and for allowing us to share this editorial with members.

Foot Bathing Sheep Factsheet

Following on from the lambing ewe management post from last newsletter we were sent a factsheet on foot bathing sheep which was prepared by Alex Stephens, district vet located at Yass. It is again timely, as we experience some area wide rainfall for the start of this month and remember the high numbers of lame sheep from a similar time last year.

Foot Bathing Sheep_Fact Sheet 2021

Lambing Ewe Management

With many sheep producers within the TFS area lambing or about to start, it is timely to be thinking about ewe management especially remembering the issues many of us faced last year with prolapses and foot abscesses. Below is a link to an article written by Matthew Lieschke, Senior Agriculture Advisor with SELLS which recently came into the TFS inbox, with the May edition of the South East Circular.

Managing feet dystocia and worms in lambing ewes – Website – Local Land Services (nsw.gov.au)

This article references information produced by Farming Forecaster.

Goulburn Young Farmers Winning With Weaners Event

The Goulburn Young Farmers Network (GYFN) are hosting a Winning With Weaners workshop at the end of May. This one is just for young farmers and is free of charge. If you or someone you know is interested in attending more details on registering can be found here Winning With Weaners – GOULBURN YOUNG FARMERS GROUP Tickets, Sat 29/05/2021 at 9:00 am | Eventbrite

 

Parasite Control and Healthy Soils Workshop

Last week we held a TFS field day looking at Parasite Control with Matt Playford of Dawbuts and Soil Profiles with Graminus and Jason Condon. We kicked off early in an effort to make the event a true half day, and we were hosted by Clive and Meredith Cawthorne at Kialla. A big TFS thanks goes out to Clive and Meredith for their efforts in hosting the field day.

Matt started by looking at some of the trends and variations they are seeing in the lab and the reasons why this is happening. There was active audience participation with numerous questions and clarification. We were lucky to have been given permission to use some recently completed drench tests carried out by TFS members. These results raised further questions around the efficacy of certain drenches and what can be done in addition to assist with parasite control. Matt went through an exercise with attendees, which looks at all the components that make up a worm control program in a sheep enterprise and helps to self-assess the strengths and weaknesses of current practices. The exercise can be accessed here Dawbuts Sheep Producer Self Assessment Table-compressed

Ideally by the end of the exercise producers will have a fairly even shaded wagon wheel. Matt emphasized that one of the most useful tools sheep producers have in combating worms is a larval culture. Culturing WEC tests to work out the type of worm/s your sheep have, allows you to go on and use a drench that will target that particular worm species.

Matt briefly went on to discuss drenching cattle and resistance in cattle. He confirmed that they are starting to see higher levels of resistance in cattle in their lab results.

Attending members were keen to access the Dawbuts drench testing protocol sheet – this can be found here  https://dawbuts.com/2020/07/22/drench-test-guide/

After a quick morning tea and catch up we moved onto the 4th Healthy Soils workshop which looked at soil profiles. This was run by Jim and Nathan from Graminus and Jason Condon from CSU. We started in the shed looking at Sub Soil and what the interest in it is and then moved out into the paddock to look at some soil samples. The notes from the workshop can be found here Presentation Slides-compressed

We are looking to hold the next Healthy Soils workshop in June.