SEPWA Events
Events Contents
- 2009 EDRS Field Day - Sep 09
- 2009 Spring Field Days - Aug-Sep 09
- SEPWA Ladies Day - Aug 09
- Soil2Grain Workshop - Jul 09
- Harvest Photo Competition - 2008-2009
- Demystifying Precision Agriculture workshop - Mar 09
- The Festival of the Wind, Esperance - Mar 09
- SEPWA Grain Growers' Dinner - Mar 09
- SEPWA Harvest Debrief and AGM - Mar 09
- Horses for Courses: Managing Human Resources - Mar 09
- Managing a difficult harvest workshop - Feb 09
- 2008 Events
- 2007 Events
- 2006 Events
- 2005 Events
- Upcoming Events
Every year SEPWA organises various trials and events throughout the Esperance Port Zone to assist grain growers to produce quality grain and to become more profitable and sustainable.
Please note that you do not necessarily have to be a SEPWA member to attend these events, however there are discounted rates available for members. Field Days are Free for anyone to attend.
For events that are coming up in the region, check out our Calendar of Events.
Here are some events that we have hosted in 2009.
Esperance Downs Research Station Field Day
September 16th 2009
Around 100 farmers and industry personnel attended the EDRS field day on September 16 at which genetically modified (GM) canola was the focus of the day . The trial, located on the Department of Agriculture and Food's Esperance Downs Research Station, is one of 20 GM canola trials sown across the State in 2009. A number of traditional cropping research trials were also discussed as part as the annual field day jointly hosted by DAFWA and the South East Premium Wheat Growers Association (SEPWA). There were also field walks and presentations on sandplain subsoil constraints, barley disease and management, wheat time of sowing and wheat variety trials.
Ladies at Esperance Downs Research Station Field Day
Mary Ann Harris, SEPWA member, tests the fire fighting pump nozzle as Tara de Landgrafft (ABC Radio), Kelly Curnow (Cascade), Anne Whiting (Esperance), Faye Sanderson (Grass Patch), Jenne Walker (Munglinup) and Marg Gillespie (Platinum Sponsor Rabobank) look on in the Fire Preparedness section at EDRS field day.
SEPWA member Mary Ann Harris starts the fire fighting pump under the watchful eye of Stuart Cassidy of Diamond Sponsor Farm and General.
The ease with which local home cook Eileen Altieri created fresh pasta may well start a new trend in the Esperance Port Zone. During the Ladies' Component of the Esperance Downs Research Station Field day, twenty participants learned the finer points of combining durum semolina, eggs, oil and water to produce an elastic dough. Ben Curtis, SEPWA Life Member and DAFWA Project Manager, described that durum is milled into coarse grain semolina and has unique qualities that are favourable for pasta making. Mrs Altieri explained the process of rolling the pasta by hand or machine. As the dough is worked, the gluten forms bonds to increase the chewy, elastic properties. Another highlight for participants was learning how to prepare their family and farm for fire.
2009 Spring Field Days
Late spring rains were a very welcome part of the annual spring field day round this year, which saw many farmers brave the conditions to check out the latest in local cropping research, machinery and trials. At the conclusion of the field days the farmers in attendance also embraced the barley variety purity beer tasting with gusto.
Salmon Gums Field Day
The North Mallee Groups field walk incluced a talk from David Bowran from DAFWA who outlined the possibilities of GM crops for WA growers in the future. There was also a presentation on a soil wetting agent, a viewing of a SEPWA wheat trial and the AGT wheat breeding program. Other sites visited on the day were a field pea paddock, a trail that is looking at the comparison between Indian mustard and canola and a cropping system trial. The day concluded with a presentation on the CSIRO Precision Agriculture project.
Beaumont/Condingup Field Day
The field day included an impressive SEPWA canola trial for both varieties and crop growth, a visit to a SEPWA wheat trial which fostered lively discussion on falling numbers and sprouting tolerance in varieties and a SEPWA barley trial. The group then checked out another SEPWA wheat trial and then had a lively discussion on Precision Agriculture which included a live demonstration of the X20 variable rate controller.
Cascade Field Day
The day commenced with looking at a couple of SEPWA wheat and barley trials and included a presentation on the CASE sprayer as well as a talk on Precision Agriculture and a demonstration of the X20 variable rate controller. The final visit was the AGT breeding site where Kevin Young explained the hard work and numbers game of wheat breeding.
Neridup Field Day
The Neridup Field Day tour included a canola and wheat variety trials, grazed crops and the way in which the winter grazed area can be significantly reduced by accessing the winter cereal crops and hence increasing the margins of the livestock enterprise. Despite some wet crops the group pushed on to look at the effect of ryegrass pasture rotation on wild ryegrass populations as well as a SEPWA barley trial on the sand plain soils. The day finished with a Precision Agriculture presentation as well as information from SEPWA Diamond Sponsor, Farmers Centre's Sean Barrett on the CASE sprayer.
SEPWA Ladies Day and Dinner
August 6th 2009
Marg Carmody and Kelly Scholz, both of Cascade, enjoying catching up at the Ladies' Day.
The SEPWA Ladies' Day was recently held in Esperance at the Civic Centre and was attended by 110 women.
The day provided a "tasting plate" of inspiring business ideas and also delved into how to turn a passion into a realistic business ventures and the speakers spoke about their journeys into becoming well recognised leaders' in their chosen field.
The keynote speaker was Olympic Silver Medallist in Equestrian and farmer, Sonja Johnson who inspired women with her life story and competing in the Beijing Olympics last year.
Kepakurl's bush tucker was a key ingredient in some of the biscuits and slices produced by Biccies (Mandy Chapman and Gill Inkster) especially for the event.
Other speakers included local Condingup farmer and author, Fleur McDonald, Rabobank's Crawford Taylor who spoke about employment and there was also a session with Farmanco about how to work well with your consultant.
Kirsten Skraha from Wild Orchid Wines along with French Canadian Pastry Chef and boutique café owner, Rochelle Adonis inspired the ladies and tantalised their taste buds with their presentations.
Concurrent sessions had a local flavour and included Michelle Barrett who recently established HomebodE (a homewares and body products business), Kepa Kurl Director, Gail Reynolds-Adamson and the ladies got physical with a session in Tae Kwon Dae!
Marcela Roberts and Angela Hill.
Mistress of Ceremonies and local identity, Victoria Brown cleverly threaded the common theme of inspiration throughout the day. The feeling of "bon homie" was almost tangible at the conclusion of the day.
Day became night and the ladies continued on with the SEPWA Ladies' Dinner with guest speaker and gardening guru, Sabrina Hahn, from ABC Radio who was hilarious.
The day was supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry under its "Australia's Farming Future Initiative" and it also received funding from the Small Business Centre South East Coastal.
Soil2Grain Workshop
July 29 2009
Speakers Nick Poole and Jeff Baldock toasted the success of the day with SEPWA Executive member and Munglinup Farmer Doc Fetherstonhaugh.
The recent Soil2Grain workshop at Munglinup was attended by 45 farmers and agronomists from around the Esperance Port Zone and around Western Australia.
Doc Fetherstonhaugh celebrates the successsful Soil2Grain workshop with speakers Nick Poole and Dr Jeff Baldock
As the only Soil2Grain Workshop in Western Australia, SEPWA was privileged to host Nick Poole (Foundation for Arable Research in NZ) and Dr Jeff Baldock (CSIRO in South Australia) for the day.
The workshop was a part of a series of workshops, training courses and meeting that have been devised to keep farmers up to date with the latest results, techniques and guidelines from a GRDC funded project on Canopy and Disease Management interactions in cereal crops.
Topics discussed included focused on "extracting more crop per drop from crop canopies" and covered nitrogen, canopy management and cereal disease control. Farmers were advised as to what tools they can use to visualise crop nitrogen (N) requirements in cereal crops and how to determine how much N the soil will provide in the spring.
Feedback from the participants was very good and we are looking forward to seeing Nick and Jeff in region next year and in 2011 for the follow up workshops.
Harvest Photo Competition
2008 - 2009
Rain, hail and shine – south coast farmers had to deal with it all this past harvest and the photos in the SEPWA photo competition show it all.
Congratulations to Peter Kuiper from Ravensthorpe who was the winner with a great action photo of the header being towed out of the bog.
We received some great photos of what has been a really challenging harvest.
Demystifying Precision Agriculture workshop
March 2009
SEPWA hosted the first regional Precision Agriculture (PA) training day which was part of the GRDC funded "Putting Precision Agriculture on the Ground" project lead by CSIRO. One event was tailored to agronomists needs while farmers needs were catered to another day. The course was lead by Roger Mandel from Curtin University and Roger Lawes from CSIRO.
The topics covered included:
- economics of PA
- software systems
- explaining the equipment
- defining some of the terms (removing the Jargon)
- and a step by step process of bringing in yield data (and other layers) to making prescription maps
SEPWA hosted the first regional Precision Agriculture (PA) training day which was part of the GRDC funded "Putting Precision Agriculture on the Ground" project lead by CSIRO. One event was tailored to agronomists needs while farmers needs were catered to another day. The course was lead by Roger Mandel from Curtin University and Roger Lawes from CSIRO.
This PA project will run until June 2011 and there will be several more training events over the coming 2 years. If you have any questions from the training days, contact Nigel Metz on 9083 1115.
The Festival of the Wind, Esperance
March 2009
The recent Festival of the Wind Home Brew competition and Beer sensory evaluation was a great opportunity to join the sample hut measurement to the end product. The main speaker for the day was retired brewer, Roger Bussel who is the Secretary of the Asia-Pacific section of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling.
Also present for the Festival were two junior brewers from Little Creatures Brewery in Fremantle.
The SEPWA Barley Variety Purity project helped fund the "Sensory Evaluation Course" run by Roger Bussel, as well as supporting the festival with a presentation between DAFWA and SEPWA on the importance of grain quality characteristics in the brewing and malting process.
SEPWA Grain Growers' Dinner
March 2009
The Annual SEPWA Grain Growers' Dinner once again attracted a large number of people who enjoyed fine wine, food and company at the Esperance Civic Centre.
The Mediterranean flavour of the evening culminated with keynote speaker, Kingsley Sullivan who is owner and founder of the New Norcia Bakeries which is Australia's most highly awarded bakery.
It was a great opportunity for people to celebrate their participation in the grains industry and catch up with other farmers from throughout the region.
SEPWA Harvest Debrief and AGM
March 2009
Various speakers including local farmers, researchers and technology developers talked about how the use of precision agriculture tools can improve the efficiency of farm operations.
Keynote speaker, Sam Trengove, from Clare in South Australia spoke at lengths about PA - its components, mapping and managing variability, satellite imagery, crop biomass, varying herbicides, fungicides and growth regulants and on the go measuring systems as well as what the future holds.
Five local farmers also gave presentations on where they are up to with PA on their farms. This was a highlight of the day with insights of some of the best local farmers capturing the attention of the entire audience. The local speakers were Phil Longmire, Doc Featherstonhaugh, Colin De Grussa, Dave Cox and Mark Wandel.
The SEPWA AGM was also held and youth showed through in the new successful candidates with Sam Guest and David Cox been elected, along with re-elected Executive members, Chris Reichstein and Wayne Walter.Local farm consultant, John Richardson and Peter Roberts, who farms at Holt Rock, decided to retire from the Executive committee. The AGM also resulted in the approval of a motion "to increase the SEPWA membership fee from $110 to $150 plus GST a year", which was passed unopposed and will also see an Associate membership increase to $50 plus GST.
In the afternoon, results of the SEPWA wheat and barley variety trials along with results from the barley source of contamination study were also presented. In the afternoon AWB, CBH and Grain Pool representatives reflected on the 08/09 harvest.
Horses for Courses: Managing Human Resources
March 2009
More than seventy people from across the Esperance Port Zone learned how to attract, better manage and retain staff at a recent workshop organised by the South East Premium Wheat Growers Association and the Esperance Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA.
The broad spectrum of speakers covered topics such as occupational health and safety, immigration, working on the business (not just in the business), what the employer/employee wants, deciding what type of person is needed for the farm team and developing procedures.
The day was sponsored by Farm Training WA, South East Coastal Small Business Enterprise Centre, Skywest and Comfort Inn Bay of Isles Motel and supported by Water Corporation.
Managing a difficult harvest workshop
February 2009
More than 50 people attended the workshop to find out ways to maximise harvesting opportunities and the different options available to manage the grain once it has been harvested in order to maximize grain quality.
Local farmers Andrew Fowler (Condingup), Stott Redman (Hopetoun), Wayne Walter (Cascade), Chris Reichstein (Mt Ridley) and Peter Kirchner (Munglinup), shared their experiences from the past harvest in the use of bagging, blending, drying, aeration, swathing, spraying and more.
Farmers also heard from Mick Daw from CBH and DAFWA researcher, Ben Biddulph who spoke about the genetic variability of varieties to withstand weather along with SEPWA's Nigel Metz who spoke about aeration and grain dryers.