The Farmer’s Morning Tea, held at Allora Sports Club, was attended by a good sized crowd of local producers, and a representative of employees from across three key Queensland branches; Allora, Clifton and Warwick.
The morning kicked off with key speaker, Hayley Robinson (MLA) who delivered a talk focused on data projects concerning the future of the Australian meat market, its influence on farming strategy and practices and the MSA’s commitment to helping its members.
This was followed by presentations from Bede O’Mara and Chris Farlow (Incitec Pivot Fertilisers) which detailed soil and plant nutrition to maximise potential pasture and fodder crops. They outlined necessary steps in maintaining optimum plant production to support animal production as well as the risks associated with excessive nitrates and why regular soil testing should be undertaken to establish a starting point in your fertiliser program.
This was supported by talks from Heritage Seeds. Spokesperson and territory manager, Chris Collyer, lead an informative session on Winter forage options for oats, barley and tritcale. He detailed the benefits of legumes in pasture situations and how to utilise rotational crops to fill in ‘feed gaps’.
The morning closed with Nufarm and speaker Mal Salisbury who considered the importance of stewardship by farms to be familiar with their product labels as well as the whys and wherefores of wetters/ surfactants / adjuvant, tank mixing orders, nozzle selection and herbicide selection for less stress in crop.
Southern Downs Regional Council were in attendance to inform growers of their invasive pest eradication programmes and extended an invitation to farmers to establish programmes of their own to help tackle the current situation.
We would like to thank Allora Sports Club for the high standard of the venue and catering. We hope to follow this up with regular gatherings to help farmers keep up to date with industry movements and keep the conversations flowing between Pursehouse Rural, our customers, our suppliers and other industry leaders.
-Marty Kerlin
Sales Manager, Queensland
(Event Organiser)