Farming in Bendigo Part 2

Today we visited Birchip, which is a small town about 200km north-west of Bendigo (north-western Victoria), for the local farming group's field day.  They had a much smaller crowd than normal due to the floods (some people are still cut off), and the whole place was really disgustingly muddy.  Apparently the field day was for all of the farmers to get together and listen to some speakers talk about farming innovations and hot topics, and to see the trial paddocks (where they've previously planted different types of seeds) to make a judgement about what they want to plant in future years.  We don't know much about farming so most of it went over our heads, but we wandered around and had a look anyway.


Stephen's Dad is an agronomist and he gave a talk about risk management on farms due to climate change and variability.  One of his props was a 2 month old lamb which pooped on him during the talk which was pretty funny.  

They had giant tractors.

There was a lot of canola.  Apparently they use canola oil to make margarine.  

Because of the rains, the whole trial paddock was really, really muddy - deep, slippery, squelching mud that required giant gumboots and a great deal of balance.  The green crop on the right of the photo is wheat.

Tomorrow we're off to Melbourne - only 4 days until we leave for St Petersburg!