Euroa Grazing

Coordinator: Kate Sargeant

History of group:

The Euroa Grazing Group began as a Beefcheque group facilitated by Jeff Gilbert in 2003.  After completing the second year of Beefcheque in 2004, the group became incorporated, running their own activities and supporting each-other throughout the dry years of 2005 and 2006 before becoming a BESTWOOL-BESTLAMB group coordinated by Tim Ekberg from Farming Answers in 2007.  Tim coordinated the group throughout 2007 and up until July 2008 when it was handed over to Kate Sargeant, from Department of Primary Industries.  Since then, several new members have come from the graduating Seymour District Beefcheque groups, also facilitated by Kate.

Who’s in the group?

Euroa Grazing Group is made up of 28 beef, sheep and mixed farming businesses in relatively equal proportions.  Approximately half of the group members are located on the flats around Euroa, Longwood and Violet Town and the other half are in the hills and valleys around Ruffy, Terip Terip and Creightons Creek.  Property sizes range from 40-1000ha with the average at 400ha.   The committee members include President Stan Artridge (Ruffy), Vice President Keith Dean (Violet Town), Secretary Jane Davey (Longwood), Treasurer Barrie Craven (Euroa) and committee members Mick Hill (Ruffy), Graeme Johnson (Euroa), John Kelly (Euroa) and Jim Perry (Euroa).

Group activities and interests:

Members of the Euroa Grazing Group have developed a vision and a set of goals for their individual farm businesses. These goals are reviewed annually to determine what questions they need to answer to make informed decisions towards reaching their goals.  Group activities designed to answer the key questions include facilitated discussions to learn from the experiences of each other, excursions to learn from others outside the region, trials and demonstrations to learn how new practices can work in their own district and presentations from experts to learn about the latest technology.

The group meets 8-9 times per year and has a monthly newsletter which provides an update of trial results, a summary of the previous activity and notice of future activities in the region.  Each meeting begins with a 1-hour “think-tank” session where the group works on helping each other to work through a few key management decisions to be made in the coming months.  This also provides an opportunity for an update on any interesting learning’s from farm activities in the previous month.

Key focuses and activities for 2010:

Matching seasonal livestock production targets with feed availability and quality

  • MLA and DPI funded Producer Demonstration Site (Andrew Walta and John Kelly) to determine the production, persistence and profitability of different perennial species.
  • The group will complete the new EverGraze Pastures for Place and Purpose course in 2010 to determine pasture establishment techniques and which plants in what proportions can be used to fill feed quantity and quality gaps at different times of the year on individual farms.
  • Excursion to Tasmania to see new drought tolerant perennial species (TBC)
  • Self-funded paired paddock trials to compare profitability of various grazing cereals, annual ryegrasses and sown perennials.

Soil health

  • Presentation from Dr. Julian Hill, University of Melbourne on results from alternative fertiliser trials
  • Self funded trials
    • Frank Dawson – Nutrisoil and homemade wormjuice

Sheep and cattle weaner management 

  • Activity to determine the benefits of creep feeding, yard weaning and nutrition for optimal growth.

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