Central Committee

The role of the committee is to monitor and implement the Grasslands purpose:

• To provide opportunities for those interested in and concerned with grassland farming  to meet and exchange information, ideas and experiences relating to all aspects of grassland management, production and utilisation.
• To encourage research into, and the investigation of, problems pertaining to grassland farming.
• To stimulate the incorporation into practice of advances resulting from research, experimental work and practical experience.
• To provide both publications and electronic information on pastures and grazing management
  

President 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.
Vice - President Charlie Bruce
Past President Phil Julian
Secretary Melinda Mann
				Melinda Mann was appointed EO in November 2006, she is also the Secretary for the Central Committee. To read more about Melinda, please visit the EO page HERE.
Treasurer Joyce Gillespie
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.