President

Tim Prance

Tim manages his own consultancy business, T Prance Rural Consulting, based at Victor Harbor SA. He consults in the Green Triangle area, Kangaroo Island, Fleurieu Peninsula and lower Eyre Peninsula providing advice in pasture production and management, pasture utilisation by grazing animals, and soil, plant and animal nutrition. Before setting up his own business he worked with the SA Department of Primary Industries for 37 years undertaking grazing research and providing advice to farmers.

Tim has been a society member since 1980, and attended most annual conferences since then. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology, and is a Certified Practising Agriculturalist (CPAg).

Tim has delivered PROGRAZE® workshops to more than 500 landholders since 1995, along with Top Fodder workshops to dairy, sheep and beef farmers, the dairy forage skills program, LifeTime ewe workshops and managed three Evergraze sites in SA.

Tim is a member of the Ag Impetus group based at Hamilton and the SA Livestock Consultants group, and is currently society vice President. He is looking forward to the 2011 Grassland society conference in Hamilton in June.

He also enjoys observing, and monitoring, the interaction between grazing animals and pasture. The two books that reflect his philosophy regarding grazing and pastures are Grass to Milk by CP McMeekan and Grass Productivity by Andre Voisin. His pet hate is pasture trial plots with fences around them.

Tim can be contacted at t.prance@bigpond.net.au, or by phoning 0427 812 655

Treasurer

MaryAnn Holt

Mary Ann first joined the Grasslands Society after reading her first GSSA Newsletter in February 2002 and went on to become involved in the Central West Branch. In 2005, she joined the Central Committee and was the 2009 Conference Convenor.

May Ann has a Bachelor of Applied Science Degree and Postgraduate Diplomas in Dietetics and Education.

She and her husband have a farm near Lara where Mary Ann continues to work. As she embraced her farming career, she was given the following two pieces of sound advice, (1) Pick your greatest knowledge gap, and learn as much as possible about it as quickly as possible, and (2) Develop networks and sources of reliable and unbiased farming.

Mary Ann’s other interests, include floristry and water-colour painting.

You can contact MaryAnn via email by clicking here werona.holt@bigpond.com

Executive Officer

Clare de Kok

Clare was recently appointed Executive Officer and brings with her a wealth of knowledge in organisational management.
Clare and her husband Bernie operate a farm property Glenhope Ridge Estate vineyard and olive grove in Glenhope East in central Victoria.
Clare is passionate about rural life and looking forward to meeting as many members as possible
She can be contacted by phone 03 5433 5324 or email the link at the bottom of this page or check the new contact details.

Newsletter Editor

Jeff Hirth

Jeff grew up on a mixed farm in western Victoria and like his ‘primary producer’ mates at school, thought he would go back onto the family farm and become part of the ‘backbone of the economy’. However, after completing a B Agr Sc degree at La Trobe University in the early 1970’s, he got side-tracked into completing an M Agr Sc thesis on factors affecting the uptake of cadmium by agricultural plants. Thus began a 30 year career in pasture research agronomy, initially with the then NSW Department of Agriculture at Condobolin followed by 25 years with the Victorian Department based at Rutherglen. Over the first 15 years, he worked on a range of nutritional and rhizobial problems of legumes on acidic soils, particularly sub clover but including annual medics and lucerne. In the early 1990’s his focus shifted to soil biology, completing a PhD on the impact of earthworm burrows on the growth of grass roots. Further earthworm studies followed before projects on soil quality, water use of lucerne and threatened native species in agricultural landscapes became major research activities.
Jeff remembers attending a Grassland conference at Monash Uni as a student in the 1970’s and joined the Society at the first Mac Troup memorial lecture at Ballarat in 1983. He became involved with the Albury-Wodonga branch in 1998 as its secretary, a position he still holds today. Jeff became editor of the society’s newsletter in 2006 and currently runs his own editorial and agronomic services business from Springhurst in north east Victoria.