BURDEKIN SUGARCANE SCIENCE FORUM

Meet and greet

(Tea and coffee)

ROB HUNT

NQ Dry Tropics

Sustainable Agriculture Program Manager

TERRY GRANSHAW

District Manager — Burdekin,
Sugar Research Australia.

Terry is well known in the Burdekin region, having worked for Burdekin Productivity Services for six years. As a senior extension officer, Terry was influential in making the Smartcane BMP program and the soil health project successful in the Burdekin. Terry has also taken lead on other projects involving harvesting, irrigation, and pests and disease.
Terry grew up on the family farm at Dalbeg and has experience spanning more than 25 years in all aspects of sugarcane farming from planting right through to contract harvesting, precision ag, irrigation and spraying.

DYLAN ZEMEK

IT Co-ordinator.

Dylan studied at the Queensland University of Technology where he completed a Bachelor of Mechatronics.

Dylan is the IT co-ordinator at Farmacist in the Burdekin and has been instrumental in development of spatial database systems, field sensors and wireless connectivity solutions using low-frequency radio.

He has been working on an app for growers to assist in spatial data recording and providing reports. He will showcase the app he has built that manages multiple data layers and provides secure record-keeping solutions.

Dr JUSTIN SEXTON

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
College of Science and Engineering

Justin Sexton is a postdoctoral research fellow at James Cook University. He recently completed his PhD at JCU in Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy (NIRS). Justin has a background in statistical analysis. His research focus has primarily been in the Australian Sugarcane industry.

Aside from NIRS, Justin’s research projects include climate change analysis, agricultural systems simulation and crop model calibration as well as research in mathematics and science teaching.

Recently Justin has contributed to development of the Opticane.net web app. This included working with integrating weather forecast data and on-line crop models as well as contributing to the development of the front-end user experience.

Morning Tea

CARLA WEGSCHEIDL

Project leader (Wetland Extension), Department of Agriculture and Fisheries

Carla is based in Townsville with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. She leads the Agricultural Water Treatment project under the Queensland Reef Water Quality Program. She works to synthesise information, develop resources and build the capacity of advisors, growers and natural resource managers to use treatment systems and manage wetlands on farms, seeking solutions that benefit growers and the environment.

CALEB CONNELLY

Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Agricultural Economist

Caleb is part of a team of Agricultural Economists at DAF who have more than 100 hundred years od collective experience in agriculture (with diverse backgrounds in farming, agronomy, agri-finance and research extension). Caleb works alongside producers and researchers from various industries.

JULIAN CONNELLAN

Sugar Research Australia, Researcher

Julian is an Agronomist with 23 years’ experience. He began his career in north-western Victoria working on grapes and citrus before moving to the Burdekin in 2011 to work for SRA leading the project ‘Nitrogen fertiliser requirements for representative soils in the Lower Burdekin cane growing district’. After completing this project, he moved to the Wet Tropics to work on a Reef Trust funded project managed by Canegrowers, testing the effectiveness of enhanced efficiency fertilisers in the catchments of the Great Barrier Reef.

Lunch

MIKA ROWSTON

Farmacist, Extension Agronomist

Mika has a Bachelor of Science degree from Griffith University. He is the Project Manager of a large chemical management project in the Burdekin called Project Bluewater.

This project supports growers to get the most out of their chemicals and supports  improvements in effective pesticide applications.

Mika will be showcasing the latest chemical application technology and demonstrating effective delivery of chemical to targets in the Burdekin.

TERRY GRANSHAW

District Manager — Burdekin,
Sugar Research Australia.

ARWEN RICKERT

Manager, Burdekin Bowen Integrated Floodplain Management Advisory Committee (BBIFMAC).

Arwen has worked in natural resource management and environmental planning in the Townsville-Burdekin area for the past 20 years. Arwen has Bachelor and Masters degrees in Environmental Management. She grew up on a cane farm in Bundaberg and understands the many challenges facing farmers. Arwen joined BBIFMAC to manage the highly successful $1.3 million Energy Efficiency for Australian Irrigators project and stayed on as manager.

ROB HUNT

NQ Dry Tropics Sustainable Agriculture Manager.