IN a cropping-mad world, it was nice to attend a field day last week where the central theme wasn’t just cropping.
The local grower group in Darkan, Compass Agricultural Alliance, put on its October field day last Tuesday with a strong crowd of 70 producers in attendance – and the focus of the content for the afternoon was sheep.
The group’s president Tim Harrington said field days were a fantastic opportunity for mixed farmers to bounce ideas and pick up information that they might be able to apply back at home.
“We had an overwhelming response rate for the day, which is absolutely fantastic,” Mr Harrington said.
“We try to have about four field days a year and we thought this event would be a good follow up to the field day we had earlier in the year when the season didn’t break.
“For that we had a pop-up panel discussion with some experienced farmers from the area who were happy to lay down their ideas and plans to deal with the season.
“So for this field day, we asked those same farmers back to the panel to share what worked, what didn’t and what they learned.
“It’s a good opportunity for our members to ask their peers questions and hear about some other sheep management options being used in the local area.”
Compass seeks the services of Icon Agriculture to carry out full farm analysis and budgeting, with their knowledge and information backed by benchmarked figures generated through the group’s membership, and was therefore able to give a precise outlook for the remainder of the season and into the next during the field day.
Icon Agriculture’s Mark Allington kicked the day off interviewing the panel, firing off questions about all aspects of sheep production this season in comparison to their averages including stocking rates, feeding budgets, condition scores, lambing rates and wool cuts.
The focus was principally on the 2017 season, with plenty of questions directed at the panel around things like what went well and what they wished they’d done differently, with feeding regimes the topic arguably peaking the most interest from the audience.
Mr Allington then gave a presentation on ‘managing your sheep this summer’, utilising local benchmarking data and focusing on feeding and time of weaning for white tag lambs.
With 45 per cent of the land in the group occupied by cash crops, utilisation of these stubble residues and chaff heaps combined with targeted supplementary feeding to ensure low mortality rates of weaners and high conception rates of the ewe flock was discussed.
The hands-on portion of the day came afterwards with demonstrations of new technology, including a sheep handler and auto drafter, as well as a pasture trail and crop walkthrough.
Throughout the various presentations on the day, participation and engagement from the audience was high, evidence of the positive reception for field days conducted by the grower group.
For more information about Compass contact the group’s president Tim Harrington 0427 361 228 or Icon Agriculture 9736 1055.
