THE Grassland Society of Southern Australia (GSSA) is looking to rebuild by engaging with a new generation of farmers and agricultural consultants.

The society has connected farmers, scientists and consultants for 65 years and members gave its future a big vote of confidence at the annual conference in Bendigo on July 17 to 18.

The society will now embark on a membership drive aiming to recruit younger members while revitalising its local branches and seeking funding for more on-ground research and extension activities.

Chair Tim Prance said the conference had been a success, drawing strong sponsorship with more than 130 registrations.

The society had previously warned that its future was on the line if the conference didn’t attract strong support.

“We had a good conference and a positive discussion on the future of the society that encouraged us as a board to move ahead,” Mr Prance said.

“We will particularly focus on attracting young agronomists, farmers and students while seeking funding for projects that will shore-up the society’s financial position and put a modern twist on important grasslands-based research.

“There are a lot of benefits from joining the society, not only in getting access to up-to-date information and research that drive profitability and sustainability but in the networking opportunities.”

The focus on young members has already started with three South Australian students being sponsored to attend the conference; Emily Adams received the Joyce Gillespie Student Bursary, Jessica Fels received a University of Adelaide- Ag, Food & Wine Bursary and Rory Dunn an AW Howard Memorial Trust Bursary.

People interested in joining the GSSA can visit https://www.grasslands.org.au/, call 1300 137 550.

Students can become members for free.

The conference theme was Evidence Based Decision Making and was designed to help producers make informed decisions that are right for their enterprises.

GSSA has successfully promoted the business of grass, science and farming since 1959 and has nearly 600 members and six branches in Victoria, South Australia and southern NSW.

TWO Bendigo region farms shared the secret to their success along with plans for future growth during the Grassland Society of Southern Australia (GSSA) conference.

Glenroy Farming at Bridgewater North and Fucheng Sutton Grange south of Bendigo hosted bus tours as part of the annual conference.

Glenroy Farming is a highly productive dual crop production along with a dryland and irrigated prime lamb enterprise while Fucheng Sutton Grange is a cattle breeding and lamb production business.

Sixth-generation farmer Andrew Collins showed how various grazing crops, lucerne, chicory, wheat, canola barley and ryegrass pastures are mixed and intertwined with the livestock business at Glenroy Farming.

The farm covers about 1300 hectares and runs about 2000 Merino ewes joined to Border Leicester.

The pasture mix is always changing but usually includes canola, barley, wheat, oats and been heavy on crop rotations.

“There’s nothing set in stone; just whatever we think is best at the time,” Andrew said.

This year the breakdown includes about 400 hectares of canola, 200 each of wheat and barley and some oaten hay.

While some regions around Victoria have struggled, visitors to Andrew’s farm saw the positive outcomes of the season.

“We’ve been lucky to a point,” he said.

“We had an amazing January when we got a huge amount of rain, probably 10 inches which is unbelievable.

"Usually at that time of year we grow more weeds than anything, but this year we grew a fair bit of lucerne hay on the dryland so that was very productive.

“It hasn’t been too bad and we have our normal stocking rate,” Andrew said.

The farm has developed centre pivot irrigation in the past four years and are growing grazing crops that have drought-proofed the business.

“We devote about 120 hectares of irrigation to grazing canola or wheat,” Andrew said.

“That allows us to know we’ve got plenty of feed for this time of year when there can be a feed gap.”

Fucheng Sutton Grange is increasing cattle and sheep numbers introducing new and improved pastures.

Along with new pasture mixes, the farm is home to two trial plots comparing the success of different phalaris and ryegrass varieties.

The 2225ha farm runs 673 Angus cows, about 3000 Merino ewes, 550 wether weaners and 550 ewe weaners.

Farm manager Charlie Dangerfield said the farm is in a rebuilding phase.

“This year we’re trying to boost numbers because we have a few older cows to cull and the previous manager ran lighter stocking numbers,” he said.

The corporate owners want to generate high profitability out of the land and their investments are showing their confidence in the state of the beef and sheep markets.

“It’s a three to five year rebuild to get numbers to the optimal level and to improve some of our pastures to where we want them.”

They aim to have about 3500 ewes and 1000 wethers.

“The wethers will be a management tool for our pastures," Charlie said.

"We’ll get them in and they will be able to chew pasture out if we need to.

"We’ll run them a bit harder than our ewes.”

Charlie said the mix of sheep and beef works well for the farm, which was a three-generation family Merino sheep stud and wool production business before its sale about eight years ago.

The farm has retained some old but good perennial pastures from its long family history, along with hilly native pasture paddocks.

Visitors to the farm saw how drones are being used to tackle golden thistle in the hilly areas.