News Item
HELPING HAND TO TRANSFORM SOILS
March 9, 2011
Local farmers, students and landcare members got their hands dirty at field days held at Warragul and Boolarra to increase knowledge on soil health across the region.
The Healthy Soils Sustainable Farms program was organised by the Latrobe Catchment Landcare Network with the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority, and Education Centre Gippsland (ECG).
ECG Agriculture Coordinator, Dan Spencer, said the program provided a hands-on opportunity for people to discover what is happening in their soils and provided practical approaches that they can utilise on their own properties.
Speakers included agronomist John Gallienne, Nick Dudley of Department of Primary Industries, and Peter Notman of Notman Pasture Seeds with field days held at ECG’s McMillan campus farm at Warragul and Gleeson’s property at Boolarra.
“This was a great platform for people to gain access to industry specialists to help them identify, assess and manage the different soil types that can occur across many farming properties and the link between soil and productive farm management.”
Mr Spencer said many farmers attending spoke about the challenges of farming with diverse soils and the need to adopt different management practices to ensure productivity.
Edie Barker of Coalville has been working to regenerate her 40 acre hobby farm which has a diversity of soil types and challenges as well as sink-hole problems
“I bought the property five years ago and have been undertaking large scale re-vegetation. If I can improve the health of the soils I hope to improve the land’s productivity and sustainability and at the same time increase the value of the property,” she said.
Gormandale beef farmers, Graeme and Wendy Calway have soil acidity issues on their small beef farm.
Graeme said he had been trying different approaches to re-establish pasture. “This field day is an opportunity to learn more about that process. In farming, everything starts with soils. If we can improve our soils we can improve our pasture, run more cattle, increase our productivity and property value, “he said.
As well as looking at soil types, structure and pasture renovation, the field days aimed to raise awareness of soil carbon and its role in building humus which is essential to building productive agricultural soils The field days were organised as part of the Building Carbon and Managing pH in West Gippsland Project .
WGCMA’s Healthy Soils - Sustainable Farms Project Coordinator, Tony Gardner, said the event was a great way to connect with farmers, Landcare members and students.
“It was an opportunity to provide farmers with practical tools based on scientific data that they can use to make their farm or land more productive and protected. Soil health links directly to pasture health, animal heath and human health so it is a critical link in the chain.”
Following the interest received through these field days, ECG will be conducting two follow-on workshops to assist farmers and property owners. A ‘Soil and Pasture Management’ workshop will be held on Friday March 11, and ‘How to Design a Management Program for Your Farm’ will be held on April 8 at ECG’s Warragul McMillan campus. For more information on ECG farm workshops phone 1300 462 324.
Front left: Department of Primary Industries Nick Dudley, ECG’s Ag Coordinator Dan Spencer, John Poppins Landcare Group member.
Back from left: Graeme Calway, Latrobe Catchment Landcare Network’s Peter Newgreen, John Rochford, Edie Barker,Tony Gardner of West Gippsland CMA, Wendy Calway, Ag consultant John Gallienne, Dale Spargo, Peter Notman of Notman Pasture Seed.
For further information contact:
John Brereton
Community College Gippsland
Ph: 5622 6000