Farmers flock to forestry field day

This month a huge response from locals saw 26 landholders gather near Legume, east of Tenterfield, to attend Industry & Investment (I&I) NSW’s final farm forestry field day for 2009.

I&I NSW private native forestry (PNF) training officer, John Macgregor-Skinner, said PNF field days were usually limited to half that number due to the intensive nature of the hands-on course.

“The approaching holiday season meant we didn’t have time to run two field days but we were able to bring in additional forest industry specialists to address local demand for information,” Mr Macgregor-Skinner said.

“This was an impressive group – they came to the field day with a good understanding of farm forestry and a thirst for more information.

“Many are members of the Granite Borders Landcare Group, who advised us on locating a good field day site and we were able to build on their knowledge of native forestry.

“With fires in the region, we had people taking a break from fire fighting duties that morning to return as soon as the field day finished.”

Mr Macgregor-Skinner said the size of the landholders’ farms varied from 250 to 4000 hectares.

“That’s the largest parcel of land we have seen with the potential to be turned over in part to a productive native forestry,” he said.

Mr Macgregor-Skinner said the enthusiasm of the group to improve forest health could lead to future silviculture field days where participants could learn tree-thinning skills.

“We could then conduct follow-up exercises to assess forest reactions to those treatments.”

PNF field days are an initiative of I&I NSW and the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water to outline the NSW Government’s new PNF code of practice.

Landholders can contact John Macgregor-Skinner, (02) 6672 2770 or  john.macgregor-skinner@industry.nsw.gov.au to find out more about I&I NSW PNF field days and forestry information.

Digital photographs available bernadette.york@industry.nsw.gov.au