Farm Manager

Geoff Howell

Geoffrey.Howell@education.wa.edu.au

The second part of Term One has been just as busy as the first part of the term, with all Year 10s and new Year 11s having successfully finished their First Aid Course and are currently completing their Safe Farms course.

They will then be moving on to undertake the Keys for Life course in Term Two.

Year 10s

The Year 10 groups that have been rostered to Farm have been exposed to a series of demonstrations throughout the term giving them an introduction to the skills they will need to develop to enable them to complete the units of competence required for their Certificate II in Agriculture.

Wagin Woolorama

Mr Adams, Mr Gelmi, Mr Harger and Ms Sparks took a group of students over to Wagin to compete in the young judges' competition on March the 9th.  I would like to thank them for all the time and effort they put in to preparing students for their competition.

Congratulations to the students for your successes over the day. 

Gate to Plate

On the 19th and 20th of March Mr Millichamp and I took eleven Year 12 students down to Albany to compete in the Gate 2 Plate School Challenge.  This involves students attending various session on the beef industry and related topics (vaccinations, calving difficulties, low stress stock handling) and then competing against other schools in a series of quizzes and skill demonstrations.

Congratulations must go to all Harvey students for placing 2nd in the competition and congratulations to Denmark Ag who were the overall winner. 

We spent Tuesday night at Denmark Ag and we thank them for their hospitality.

Out on Farm

Beef

Out on the farm Mr Millichamp has been kept busy with the beef herd starting to calve in mid-March.  The majority of the stud cows have already calved and the commercial herd is due to commence soon.

Horticulture

Mr Olde and Mrs Morris have been working on planting vegetable crops at horticulture as well harvesting our table grapes The horticultural section has been supplying a considerable amount of produce into the College kitchen this term.

Mr Olde and five Year 12 students embarked on an excursion to the Canning Vale Markets recently to view the sale of College produce and view the workings of the markets.

General

A lot of work has been done this term in regards to the College oval with the grass cover expanding and making the surface more usable.

We commenced reseeding 8 hectares of pasture on the dairy enterprise area down to perennial and biannual rye-grass giving students valuable machinery operation experience.

Sheep

This term we have had the services of Kevin Gellatly and Amanda Davis for three days to teach students shearing and wool handling skills.  This training is funded by Australian Wool Innovation to encourage students to enter the wool industry.

Mr Adams and the students have also been hand feeding sheep hay and lupins and have had all our cross bred ewes preg tested to determine twin or single bearing ewes.

Equine

Up at equine Mr Edwards has been working on a new horse arena to provide a larger area for students to ride on. Foal handling and horsemanship lessons have also been enjoyed by students.

Farm staff hope all students enjoy the upcoming holidays and look forward to seeing you back in Term Two.