FARM

Year 11 Bush Fire Awareness Course

This week our Year 11 students commenced a one day Fire Awareness Course conducted by staff from DFES. This course will be run over the next five weeks and involves a theory session and written assessment in the morning,  and then practical demonstrations on various firefighting pumps, drafting water from a dam and hose skills.

After successfully completing the course, students will be issued with a DFES ID Number.

Certificate III Excursion

All Year 12 Certificate III in Agriculture students attended the excursion to Three Ryans Farm and Galloway Springs near Manjimup. The farms are both leading regenerative agriculture farms with multiple innovative integrated enterprises, having a strong focus on sustainable farming practices which nurture the soil microbiome. This excursion is linked to the current unit of competency the students are working on, "Apply Environmentally Sustainable Work Practices."

Three Ryans Farm runs Merino sheep, Angus cattle, 2500 egg laying chickens and grow cauliflower, broccoli, cabbages and kale, run in a 6-year rotation. Students observed Brix readings and discussed why it so important to have high sugar levels in the pastures. Mr. Olde was impressed at the size of the very large cabbages and by growing sunflowers with the cabbages, the beneficial insects are attracted to the crop to predate the nasty pests like aphids very effectively.

At Galloway Springs Raquel and Murray Johnson explained how Regen Ag and Holistic Management enables them to effectively run several enterprises on their 80ha property. Their daughter Emily is running a pasture laid Meat Bird enterprise selling an average of 250 meat birds monthly through Dirty Clean Food and the Farm Shop at Galloway Springs. The Johnson's are very supportive of young people in Agriculture and particularly Harvey Ag as their son Dallas is a former student.

Sheep

I would like to congratulate Steve Adams on successfully completing his Owner Wool Classers course which will give him the ability to class the College Wool Clip.