PROMINENT speakers from across Western Australia's cropping and livestock sectors will showcase the latest agribusiness information and local research and development trial results at West Midlands Group's (WMG) Seasonal Updates on Tuesday, March 17, 2020.
Held at the Dandaragan Community Hall, the full-day event will cover a range of relevant agribusiness topics such as examining the longevity of soil amelioration benefits and results of local trials from the 2019 Spring Field Day site at Dandaragan.
Seasonal Updates will also feature a presentation from Agrarian Management consultant Ashley Herbert about confinement feeding, a practice that aims to promote animal health and productivity while preserving ground cover and land condition for future pasture health.
"Confinement feeding is always an option when people have late breaks or poor winters," Mr Herbert said.
"There's certainly a role for it for people looking to aggressively target stocking rates in relation to the season."
Mr Herbert hopes to give attendees a sense of how it would fit their operation, how often they might use it and what it will cost to set up confinement feeding.
Renowned Stress Free Stockmanship, Self Herding and No Kill Cropping presenter and farmer from New South Wales, Bruce Maynard, will speak on the latest behavioural science breakthroughs that have shown production benefits to livestock businesses.
"Behavioural adaptation is an exciting way to obtain a greater return from existing enterprises," Mr Maynard said.
"Changing the way livestock deposit nutrients impact the soil surface and consume plants changes the speed and spread of nutrients across farms."
Mr Maynard will discuss how farmers can integrate new livestock behavioural science in practical ways in the field.
WMG executive officer Nathan Craig was excited to share the results from a CSIRO trial hosted at the 2019 WMG Spring Field Day site at Dandaragan that investigated the benefits of novel sowing systems for chickpea and lentil crops.
"Seeing chickpea emerge from 20 centimetres deep and go on to yield over two tonnes per hectare on sandy soil was definitely a highlight of last year's trial program, especially considering the dry season," Dr Craig said.
"Chickpeas are emerging as a break crop option that can greatly increase the profitability of crop rotations in our region."
Mr Craig is confident that those who attend this year's Seasonal Updates will go away with new ideas to implement on farm or the inspiration to investigate further.
"The speakers for this event are leaders in their field, leading the way in developing new ideas and technology to better our farming systems and we anticipate that these speakers will inspire the audience to get out there and have a go," he said.
If you are interested in attending the 2020 Seasonal Updates, book tickets at trybooking.com/ BHPGL or contact the WMG office on 9651 4008.
