Sam Mackrill demonstrates his shearing expertise that has him included in both the Victorian and Australian competition shearing teams. Photos: Andy Wilson
Agriculture Victoria hosted the 2023 BestWool/BestLamb conference on Tuesday, June 20 at the Bendigo Showgrounds.
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More than 350 attendees heard from sheep graziers, breeders and service providers covering a wide range of updates in the wool and lamb industry.
Kynetec agriculture data analysts Brianna Kelly from Kilmore and Vicki Purden from Bendigo attended the day and found the more statistics-based presentations of interest.
Kynetec is an international market and agriculture research company.
Ms Kelly said she also came to the event for inspiration.
“My parents are away from the family farm, visiting Scotland for the world shearing championships,” Ms Kelly said.
“So I might do a bit of innovation.”
Ms Purden said she could potentially apply some ideas from the day on her own property.
The duo’s work includes commodity price analysis reporting, and they said they drew ideas from the data presented by lamb triplets specialist Dr Jason Trompf.
“There were really good stats from him,” Ms Purden said.
“The mob size data was interesting in terms of separating between twins and triplets.
“And it would be interesting to analyse how 30kg lambs would impact labour, lambing, marking and shearing.”
“At our work, we could potentially look at lambing forecasts and livestock chemical forecasting from this.”
Brianna Kelly and Vicki Purden are two Kynetec agriculture statisticians who attended the day 'for the numbers'. They aim to take inspiration back to Kynetec, particularly to model the impact of 30kg sheep on production and chemical forecasts.
Agriculture Victoria emissions specialist Alison Kelly said the response to her presentation on farm actions plans for carbon emissions was pleasing.
Ms Kelly spoke to farmers about understanding their carbon emission numbers and is helping to run a pilot project across all areas of agriculture, including livestock.
“The feedback we got was quite positive and there was more interest from some to become engaged in our pilot project,” Ms Kelly said.
“We have involved 60 farms from all types of areas and plan to have 250 involved over the life of the project.”
South Australian farmer Lynton Arney speaks with Jason Trompf at the BestWool/BestLamb conference. Dr Kompf spoke about the need for farmers to recognise a larger percentage of triplets in their mobs and adapt their management accordingly.
The pilot project has two more years until completion and is designed to resource farmers with a strategy for their production in terms of carbon emissions and sustainability.
“They get an action plan and state government funding, one-to-one, for a grant of up to $16,000.”
AgVic will soon be rolling out a new round of invitations for expressions of interest.
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