Spring Seasonal Update

Invites for the Spring Seasonal Outlook on Monday October 26 will be in your inboxes today. We are very excited to announce our speakers: John Francis from Holmes Sackett in Wagga and Matt Lieschke from South East LLS.

John will be presenting on the probable feed surplus going forward and options available to producers. The Holmes Sackett website is available here for anyone interested in finding out more about their services.

Matt will have a Farming Forecaster Q&A session which will touch on some of the common questions and comments he has received since the launch. Matt will also take us through the practicalities of using Farming Forecaster for those that don’t have a probe on their property.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Regenerative Agriculture Quantifying the Cost

We have sourced a report titled ‘Regenerative Agriculture – Quantifying the Cost’ from John Francis, Director of Holmes Sackett an agricultural consultancy business based in Wagga Wagga. We thank John and Holmes Sackett for allowing us to distribute this report to the TFS membership. A link to the report and the Holmes Sackett website is listed below:

Regenerative agriculture – Quantifying the Cost

https://www.holmessackett.com.au/

Noteworthy News

TFS welcomes new members – in conjunction with the current membership renewals we have welcomed some new members into the TFS community. We warmly welcome – Brian Lowe and Michael Lowe from Crookwell, Will Picker and Murray Gregory from Bigga, Jack Earl and Richard Bell from Taralga, James Frost from Bannister, Steve Anderson from Quialigo and Pete Czeti from Amaroo. We look forward to catching up with you at upcoming TFS events.

Next TFS Event – speaking of upcoming TFS events we are busy planning the Spring seasonal update. Keep an eye on your inbox as the event invite will be out soon. It promises to be another very informative session with exciting presentations.

Sulfur in Agriculture and Fertiliser S Efficiency

TFS members were fortunate to have the opportunity to hear Professor Graeme Blair from the University of New England speak as part of the recent Healthy Soils workshop. Professor Blair’s in-depth presentation on sulfur use in agriculture and its relationship with fertiliser and it’s efficiency, was well received by members.

We learnt that one of the major roles of sulfur in plants, is to improve the plants resistance to cold and disease which is essential knowledge in the Southern Tablelands!

Professor Blair’s power point slides are available at the link below:

Fert Direct Vergona 2020 Prof G Blair

Photo credit: gardeningknowhow.com

Lameness in Sheep

Due to the current conditions within the TFS area some producers are seeing an increase in numbers of lame sheep. A timely reminder from LLS on this topic arrived in the TFS inbox recently and it reported that they have not only had reports of foot abscesses in adult sheep but also in weaner lambs.

Lameness in sheep occurs because of a variety of reasons with one being foot abscesses. Foot abscesses are more common in favourable seasons when stock are in good condition and are continually grazing in long wet grass. The LLS information points out that the high proportion of clover and capeweed in our pastures are contributing to keeping the animals feet wet.

Included in the email from the LLS is a link to the June 2020 edition of the Animal Health Update put out by the South East Local Land Services. This publication includes a section written by the District Vet located at Cooma, Petrea Wait on lameness in sheep and is worth a read for those experiencing these conditions. Petrea’s article is located on page 4 – SELLS-Animal-Health-Update_June-2020_

Photo credit: www.nadis.org.uk

The What, Why and How of Biosecurity

Our Graham Centre friends, Marta Hernandez-Jover and Jennifer Manyweathers will be presenting a half hour webinar on all things biosecurity on the 6th of August from 6pm. Below is the link to the webinar registration:

Graham Centre Biosecurity Webinar Registration

The aim of the webinar is to provide an overview of what the laws about biosecurity actually say, what biosecurity recommendations and templates actually mean, the implications of the recent changes around on-farm trespasses and what biosecurity might look like on farm.

Beetles with Benefits

Two team members from the Dung Beetles Ecosystem Engineers team, Dr Russ Barrow and Mr Graeme Heath attended a recent TFS workshop. Their presentation gave us a run down on the history of dung beetles in Australia, their importance and ways that TFS members can become involved in dung beetle monitoring on farm.

The presentation slides are available for review by TFS members here: TFS Field Day July 28 2020 Dr R Barrow Dung Beetles

Photo credit: Dr Russ Barrow, Dung Beetles Ecosystem Engineers TFS presentation

New Farming Forecaster Intro and User Guide Available Now

Attached under our top resources section are two documents designed to explain Farming Forecaster further. The Introduction to Farming Forecaster gives you a brief overview of the tool and explains the four main sections and where they can be accessed.

The Technical User Guide attached, specifically covers the pasture forecast and seasonal rainfall forecast sections. This user guide has been prepared by Pat Mitchell from CSIRO Agriculture and Food. The aim of this guide is to provide background information on the backend forecasting approaches used in obtaining the data within Farming Forecaster.

Coming Soon – Farming Forecaster training videos.

Dung Beetles and their Benefits!

You might be surprised by some of the benefits of having dung beetles on your farm – the obvious ones being improving your soil and pasture health, reducing nutrient run off into waterways and decreasing the spread of disease and insects (this includes bush flies) but did you know they can help with carbon sequestration and controlling some livestock parasites like gut worms?

TFS has learnt that there is a significant gap in the current monitoring of dung beetle activity in the TFS area. We are in discussions with team members of the Dung Beetle Ecosystem Engineers (DBEE) project who are keen to establish some monitoring sites in the Southern Tablelands. If this is a project that interests you and you would like to find out more please get in touch via our email as soon as you are able. Once we see what the level of interest is, we will look to run a Webinar or Zoom meeting with members from the DBEE. A link to the DBEE website is below if you are interested to find out more:

Dung Beetle Ecosystem Engineers

Photo credit: Dung Beetle Ecosystem Engineers Website

Brr its cold in here! The Effects of Temperature on Pasture Production

On Wednesday June 3rd Dr Jim Virgona of Graminus Consulting will be delivering a webinar on the effects of cold temperatures on pasture production as part of the MLA’s Productivity & Profitability webinar series. The webinar is scheduled to start at 8pm.

Topics to be covered include:

  • When is cold temperature the limiting factor?
  • How does temperature impact nitrogen response?
  • How does temperature impact plant production in different perennial species?

To register to watch Jim or any of the previous and upcoming MLA Productivity & Profitability webinar series click on the below link:

MLA Webinar Registrations