Upcoming Events in Victoria

Farm Forestry Field Day at Titanga, Lismore

Establishing and managing integrated forestry plantings on your farm.  The many benefits include carbon revenues, timber sales, habitat, managing water, and shelter

About:

Titanga has about 5% (130 ha) under plantings of commercial species, mainly of bluegums for pulp and sugar gums for milling (about 5% more is of landcare and historic plantings).

Since November 2022 about 25 ha of sugar gum and other species has had a late first thinning, producing about 900 tonnes of poles, which are currently being extracted and sold for firewood. The farm forestry plantings currently offset an estimated 40% of the property’s GHG emissions. The plan is to plant another 100 ha to reach a potential offset of 90-100%.

This field day is for farmers, and other landowners, who want to know –

  • How to best manage plantations of commercial tree species (bluegums, sugar gum, etc.) established on your farm in the period 1994-2008, or since.
  • How planting commercial tree plantations might give you a significant revenue stream from wood or carbon into the future?
  • How much well-designed farm forestry plantings can help improve farm value, reduce evaporation from dams or pastures, and reduce losses with lambing ewes and off-shears sheep.

All these topics and much more will be covered in this field day, both in the morning talks and the afternoon visits to a bluegum plantation in its second rotation, and to wide multi-purpose plantations of sugar gum, and other euc species, that have had a late first thinning.

Date: Saturday 11 May
Time: 9:00am

Meeting Point: Titanga woolshed (enter off the Lismore-Skipton Road about 1.5 km north of the Hamilton highway. Signs will be in place). Please click HERE for Google Maps Location.

Meals: Coffee, tea and lunch will be provided. Please provide your dietary requirements when you register.

Equipment: Please note that with the sites the ground is rough and covered with sticks and there are many stumps. Occasional larger branches do fall. Please wear suitable footwear and dress for the weather.

Since the field day site visit will be though paddocks of ewes about to lamb, we ask that dogs are not allowed to this day.

Registrations: $0

To Register Click HERE

Program

9.00am: Arrive at Titanga shearing shed for name tags and tea/coffee

9.30am: Welcome by Philippa Noble, President of Farm Forest Growers Victoria

9.45am: Andrew Lang about the farm forestry management at Titanga, and the economics, other benefits and revenues.

10.15am: Erin Hodgson (forester with PF Olson) about carbon revenues and emissions-offsetting from farm forestry plantings

10.45am: Morning tea

11.15am: Rob Horner, local sawmiller, about the opportunity for value-adding farm-grown timbers, issues of habitat, and care of sites post-harvest for best coppice regeneration.

11.30am:  A discussion of attendees’ issues –including preparation, species choice, site design, layout, contractors… Where to get information and advice on plantings, grants and management (facilitator to be decided)

12.00pm: Lunch and networking, and looking at exhibits

1.00pm: Depart for site visits (by share vehicles and hopefully a small bus)

4.30-5.00pm: Return to Titanga shearing shed for tea/coffee, farewells, and depart.

Note – the afternoon program may need to be changed due to wet weather

 

Past Events

Victorian Annual Meeting
Date: Thursday 23 November 2023 | Time: 5:00pm

FFORNE AGM
Date: Sunday 19 November | Time: 12:00pm

FIELD TRIP: Forestry and active management for biodiversity
Date: Saturday 7 October

Networking Event: Urban Forestry
Date: Thursday 21 September
Speaker: Kelly Hertzog, Manager, Urban Forest and Ecology, City of Melbourne

Victorian Forestry: Where to next?
Discussions around the ongoing impacts of and response to the Victorian Government decision to close native forestry in December 2023
Date: Thursday 20 July

VIC Field Trip: Opportunities for agroforestry and utilising plantation grown hardwoods in Gippsland
Date: Saturday 29 April

VIC: Networking Event
WithOneSeed Project, East Timor. Presentation by Andrew Mahar, AM
Date: Thursday 23 February 2023

End of Year Celebration & Seminar
Increasing productivity and value of Victoria’s forest plantations through tree breeding: past, present and future.
Date: Thursday 8 December 2022

Open Day: Farm Forestry at Brimin Lodge, NE Victoria
Date: Sunday 9 October 2022

Networking Event: Australia’s Timber Supply
Australia’s Timber Supply: The role of imports, impacts of war and what do we do now?
Date: Thursday 8 September 2022

File Trip & Demostration: CERES Fair wood
Gippsland Agroforestry Network (GAN)
Date: Wednesday 15 June 2022

Field Trip: Strathbogie
Farm Forestry North-East (FFORNE)
Date: Saturday 4 June 2022

Field Trip: Forest Pest Management Research Consortium – Gippsland
Date: Thursday 21 May 2022

Networking Event: Warragul
Gippsland Plantations and Investment
Date: Thursday 16 December 2021