Digging down under

Wimmera growers and grower advisers will have the chance to look at what’s happening underneath their crops during a ‘Digging Down Under’ workshop at St Helen’s Plains on Monday.

Hosted by Horsham East Ag and Landcare group, this event will include presentations from Agriculture Victoria soils and crop disease specialists and will include soil pit inspections.

A barbecue lunch at Taylors Lake Hall will start the day’s activities at noon.

Participants will then inspect a soil pit at the site of a soil-treatment demonstration. Here, Agriculture Victoria soils experts Melissa Cann and Dr Murray Hart will discuss variation in subsoils.

Ms Cann will also use the soil pit to demonstrate simple tests that growers can use to understand soil constraints and structure.

Dr Hart, a soil research scientist, will inform growers about the yield-limiting effects of subsoil constraints and the latest research into subsoil amelioration.

A crop walk, accompanied by Agriculture Victoria grains pathology project officer Luise Sigel, will conclude the day.

Ms Sigel will provide an update on root-disease identification and management. Before the workshop, growers interested in joining the newly formed Horsham East Landcare group have an invitation to attend a meeting at Taylors Lake Hall at 11.30am.

The ‘Digging Down Under’ workshop will cost $15 a person. People seeking more details can phone Heather Drendel on 0427 868 705.