As a follow-on from the Farm Forestry Field Day at Kanumbra in May 2021, MCN and the Home Creek - Spring Creek Landcare Group decided to organise a Master TreeGrower (MTG) course in the Upper Goulburn region for March/May 2022.

The MTG consists of 8 days (approx 50 hours spread over 2 months) for 25-30 participants (landowners, farmers, contractors and young professionals in forestry sector). Each course day includes expert presentations and visits to one or more agroforestry sites to demonstrate course topics, including:

- agroforestry for conservation and profit;

- markets for tree and forest products and services including bushfoods, fodder, essential oils;

- demand and supply trends for different timber products, prices, trading mechanisms;

- product processes (incl. on-site and off-site milling);

- planning and legislative aspects of a tree farm;

- vegetation classification and species selection, establishment and silviculture, fire hazard reduction;

- optimising biodiversity values of farm forestry looking after old paddock trees, shelter belts,

  beneficial insects and predator birds, environmentally friendly weed and pest control);

- measuring carbon sequestration, opportunities for selling Australian Carbon Credit Units

  from farm trees under the Emissions Reduction Fund and on secondary markets.

All topics are presented by specialists reflecting state of the art practice and latest research. Participants receive practical hands-on experience from multiple site visits, documentation on each topic along with some advice on their own agroforestry plans.

Further details of the course, and a call for Expressions of Interest from participants, are shown below:

As a follow-on to the MTG Workshops, a series of YouTube videos were made, featuring the speakers' presentations on each of the six days of formal presentations. Links to the YouTube videos are shown below:

Day 1

Rowan Reid (Farm Forestry Objectives): https://youtu.be/Q-qFx_lZwhY

John Woodley (More Farm Forestry Objectives): https://youtu.be/6zr31N0L6QU

Tony Richardson (And More Farm Forestry Objectives):  https://youtu.be/NGeHP6oE5hg

Day 2

Andrew Lang (Timber Products and Bioenergy): https://youtu.be/JgxYJ-S9Fm8

David Johnston (Oil Products from Trees): https://youtu.be/rXkM3q7JC2c

Day 3

Rowan Reid (Forest Measurement): https://youtu.be/VRSRrY92zLo

Rowan Reid (Silviculture): https://youtu.be/K_RtIVV0ZEA

Tony Richardson (Monitoring & Evaluation): https://youtu.be/EZ_mJYj8R3c

Day 4

Clinton Tepper (Establishment and Silviculture, Pt.1): https://youtu.be/GA83tDTdJg4

Clinton Tepper (Establishment and Silviculture, Pt.2): https://youtu.be/eYVSC5a5Uw8

Day 5

Zara Marais (Farm-Scale Benefits of Agroforestry): https://youtu.be/Gfm5MnbI3Zc

Ron Litjens (Habitat-Friendly Tree Farming): https://youtu.be/Y4NcCFbuMoU

Hayden Cronin (Marketing of Sustainable Timber Products): https://youtu.be/WAttoYCNaVI

Day 6

Graeme Anderson (Victorian Climate Change Update): https://youtu.be/N2gvIRdVvQA

Grant Scale & Stuart Morris (Planning Issues and the Forestry Code of Practice):

https://youtu.be/UqBBgSoDYuI