Grazing Group Field Day
On Thursday March 20th, 17 passionate individuals gathered for a productive and informative day at Dan and Bron Roger’s property in West Wyalong. Attendees traveled from a variety of locations including Cowra, Forbes, Canowindra, Temora, and the Condo area, making it a great opportunity for knowledge exchange and community building. Thanks to Terry Worthington for providing the below recap from the day, capturing the key highlights and takeaways from this fantastic field day.
In the group discussion a large range of topics were covered including reducing on farm costs, cattle agistment vs cropping returns, grass inventories and sell buy marketing. We were lucky enough to have Gus Hickman there to talk through his journey of 30 years building soil health through planned grazing. Gus shared his experience of increased biodiversity (50 different grasses), greater rest (100days) and animal impact (over 800 head at times) creating a highly productive low input high profit grazing system. Thanks Gus, and there will definitely be a trip to Woodstock in the future from our grazing group as you really wet our appetite to discover more.
It was then Dan’s turn to share the many systems changes Dan and Bron have undertaken on their property. Dan’s philosophy of keeping it simple and looking after the soil first shone through. Following lunch, the group then did a paddock walk where we could see firsthand the great work done building soil health. A great day of knowledge and network building was enjoyed once again by the group with a big thanks you to Dan and Bron for allowing us to visit their property, without their generosity none of the day could have gone ahead, also thanks to Scotty Hickman facilitating the day great job Scotty once again.
The last six months the grazing group has started a WhatsApp group for people to share their observations, thoughts, photos and information with each other. This has led to great knowledge sharing mixed with some good-natured banter. This keeps members up to date with all things farming helping us to become better managers of our grass. If you think you might like to join the group just let either Jenna, Kate or I know so we can join you up. Keep watching out in future newsletters for some exciting news for Condo Landcare Grazing Group. Looking forward to seeing more new faces in the coming events.
Thank you again to everyone who attended and contributed to the day’s success. We look forward to building on these discussions and continuing our journey toward better land management practices. Stay tuned for more updates and events from the Grazing Group in the near future!