A series of weekly webinars for the Grassland Society of Southern Australia's 61st annual conference will wrap up this week with a video diary of a rookie farmer.
The webinars started July 22 and follow the theme 'Growing with Grasslands'.
The final sessions will be held on Wednesday, August 19 and will feature a virtual farm tour hosted by GSSA vice-president Georgie Rees.
The presentation will detail Ms Rees's family's effort in establishing a small farming enterprise at Ballan.
Her parents Jean and Geoff and brother Rohan are all involved in the family enterprise that doubles as a retirement project for her folks.
Although her parents came from family farming backgrounds, they have no practical farming experience and this is their first foray into farm ownership.
They recently retired from careers as an electrical instrument mechanic and a midwife.
Rohan is a full-time plumber and Georgie is Seed Force's territory business manager in western Victoria and south-east South Australia.
"The concept of juggling the farm and working full time is challenging," Ms Rees said.
The video will focus on the basics for making a start in farming.
"It will be a bit of a farming 101; giving people an idea of the important things you have to think about when you're starting," she said.
The Rees family is developing a plan for the property but has already introduced 40 beef cattle to the site.
Ms Rees is focusing on bringing the land up to scratch, including taking soil tests and developing a plan of how to increase land fertility, which paddocks to renovate first and a feed plan for the cattle.
"There's a real clean slate and we're really starting from scratch," she said.
"I had knowledge of pasture improvement but I hadn't done it in practice, so it has been a learning process for me."
She is also developing a budget spreadsheet to show costs and to plot a path to profitability.
"One economic analysis suggests you need 100 cattle to be profitable. I envisage we could have up to 130 breeders running relatively intensively," Georgie said.
"We're in the building phase at the moment so we don't want to do that too quickly."
It is intended that Rohan will move onto the farm in about 10 years.
Wednesday night's session will also include GSSA branch updates and a presentation on the Ellinbank SmartFarm pasture smarts project.
The webinars represent the first time in the society's 61-year history that it hasn't held a face-to-face annual conference.
The weekly online sessions from 7.30pm-9.30pm have looked at projects in pastures, what lies below the ground, legumes and pastures abroad.
People can register to livestream the webinars, which will include opportunities for questions. Recordings will also be available at a later date, along with a publication of the proceedings. The online sessions will continue until August 19.
The society is planning to revive an in-person event in 2021 in Gippsland.
Registrations for the 2020 virtual conference are open at grasslands.org.au.
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