Soil & Pasture Health

Activity:	Details:
Workshop 1: Soil Health – the Basics	When? Thursday January 23rd 2025 What? A 1/2 day workshop presented by Lower Blackwood LCDC Project Manager Jourdyn Wells, and Program Coach Mark Tupman. Topics covered will include: – welcome and introduction to the RAPP program – the characteristics of healthy & unhealthy soils – the processes that drive the development of functional, fertile healthy soil. – how to use plants & microbes to enhance soil systems
Workshop 2: Introduction to Biodiverse Pastures.	When? Thursday February 13th 2025 What? A 1/2 day workshop presented by Program Coach Mark Tupman. Topics covered will include: – how biodiversity contributes to pasture, soil & animal health – what does biodiversity in your pastures look like – strategies to integrate biodiversity into your pastures
Workshop 3: Understanding Soil Fertility & Plant Nutrition	When? Thursday March 13th 2025 What? A 1/2 day workshop presented by Program Coach Mark Tupman. Topics covered will include: – the fundamentals of nutrition for healthy plants – methods of testing to determine soil & plant nutrition status, including how to take a soil sample. – how to develop a cost effective balanced nutrition program for your pastures
Soil & Pasture Health Peer Group Coaching Sessions	The 2 hour Peer Group Sessions provide an opportunity for you to share in context, information about your goals, practices & challenges. The purpose of the sessions are to share learnings, provide support for each other, measure progress, and promote commitment & accountability for your own enterprise goals achievement in relation to the program. The Peer Groups sessions will be facilitated by Program Coach Mark Tupman, on site at selected participant properties. Session 1: Thursday August 14th – Monitoring Soil & Pasture Health Session 2: Thursday September 18th – Review Your Diverse Pastures & Spring Fertility Program
EAL Nutrients Totals Soil Test	Each enterprise is entitled to send one soil sample to EAL laboratory to receive a complementary comprehensive soil test result including totals for macro & micro nutrients. Enterprises are encouraged to take soil samples from a paddock or area they plan to conduct a multi species pasture seeding trial, and / or implement regenerative grazing management on.
Individual Enterprise Soil & Pasture Health Coaching Session	Each enterprise will have access to 1.5 hours of our Program Coach Mark Tupman’s time. Mark’s role for this component is to provide you & your enterprise support and guidance outside of the peer group sessions, on any matters related to the regenerative practices you are implementing or would like to implement as part of this program.
Biodiverse Pasture Seeds Voucher	Each enterprise is entitled to a voucher to the value of $500 to be used towards the purchase of seeds for a multi species pasture seeding trial.
Soil Mentor App Subscription	Measuring & monitoring what is happening above & below ground is critically important to understand changes that are happening on your land – this information is also vital to making informed decisions. A simple and easy method to capture, record, & report will ensure that the measuring and monitoring actually get done. This opportunity will be provided to you via the Soil Mentor App & Regen Platform – a mobile & web dashboard for recording & benchmarking key soil health & biodiversity data. The platform has been designed by Vidacycle in collaboration with Nicole Masters and has been customised for the Lower Blackwood LCDC. Your enterprise will have a initial 12 month membership to the platform with an option to continue your subscription at the end of the 12 months.

Whole Farm Planning

Activity:	Details:
Plan Your Farm Landscape Course	When? Part 1: Monday April 7th 2025 and Tuesday April 8th 2025 (2 days face to face); Part 2: Monday July 21st 2025 and Tuesday July 22nd 2025 (2 half days online) What? Presented by David Hardwick from Soil Land Food, this innovative course will show you how to design and plan a healthy, resilient and productive rural landscape for your farm business. At the end of this course you will have the confidence to identify issues, make decisions and take action to start improving landscape health and enterprise productivity on your property. You will develop a well thought out & whole of farm plan for your place. The course is hands on, group based and combines theory with lots of practical activities.
Trees on Farms Workshop	When? Thursday June 5th 2025 What? A full day workshop presented by Kristy Stewart & Charles Otway. Topics covered include: – Why Trees on Farms – Who’s doing what on their farm – Farm Design for Trees in the Landscape – Yan Yan Gurt West Farm Case Study – Master Tree Growers – An Introduction – Trees on Farms Field Walk

Grazing Management

Activity:	Details:
Regenerating Land Through Grazing Livestock	When? Monday May 5th 2025 What? In this 1/2 day workshop, presenter and Holistic Grazing expert Dr Judi Earl will describe the range of approaches to grazing management and the impact of the different strategies on pasture dynamics, growth and production. Topics covered include: – Managing animals in tune with seasonal growth cycles – The effect of the number of paddocks on rest and recovery of plants – Matching stocking rate to carrying capacity – feed budgeting – Methods to measure available feed and pasture growth – The importance of residual herbage mass and pasture utilisation
One on One Grazing Consults	When? Tuesday May 6th 2025 to Saturday May 10th 2025. Individual appointment days/times to be confirmed with you. Dr Judi Earl will visit all enterprises for an individual 3 hour farm consultation to assist you to develop a tailored regenerative grazing management plan for your farm.
Grazing Peer Group Coaching Sessions	The 2 hour Peer Group Sessions provide an opportunity for you to share in context, information about your goals, practices & challenges. The purpose of the sessions are to share learnings, provide support for each other, measure progress, and promote commitment & accountability for your own enterprise goals achievement in relation to the program. The Peer Groups sessions will be facilitated by Program Coach Mark Tupman, on site at selected participant properties. Session 1: Thursday July 10th – Grazing on the Ground 1 (Growing Season) Session 2: Thursday October 16th – Grazing on the Ground 2 (Spring & Non Growing Season)
Mobile Fencing or Water Points Voucher	Each enterprise is entitled to a voucher to the value of $500 to be used towards the purchase of infrastructure to support regenerative grazing.

Community of Practice

Activity:	Details:
Talkin’ After Hours Membership	Talkin’ After Hours is the Lower Blackwood LCDC’s online community & information hub – created to give our farming community the opportunity to have conversations, and to share knowledge, skills & practices in a no stress, no judgement, easy access space – any time & anywhere. The project participants will receive automatic membership and within it, membership of a closed RAPP discussion group.
Podcasts	3 new Talkin’ After Hours podcasts will be recorded during the program on topics related to Regenerative Agriculture.
Case Studies	2 participating enterprises will be selected for a detailed written case study on their motivations, challenges and practices implemented.

Apply Here