Watershed Landcare will be at the Mudgee Small Farm Field Days this Friday and Saturday with workshops, lectures on a variety of topics and informative displays.

Watershed Landcare have invited local ecologist, David Allworth, to run a couple of hands-on workshops to increase your native grass identification skills and show you how to collect and grow your own native trees from seed.

Have you ever tried to identify something in your paddock and got stuck on trying to work out the terminology of botany?

Come along to our 'Understanding grasses' workshop at 1pm Friday, designed to help everyone become grass literate.

People often face difficulty when they attend a grass identification workshops, they quickly become lost, they are afraid of the terminology and, as a consequence, get discouraged and give up.

This workshop has been designed to increase grass literacy by going back to basics and to make you comfortable and familiar with those components of a grass plant essential for identification.

David will make participants better equipped to identify the many different Australian grasses by focusing on understanding the key features of a grass plant.

Collecting and growing your own native seed is relatively easy and cheap. But how do you select for viable seed, ensure successful germination and give the seedlings the best start?

Come along to the 'Seed collection, germination and broadacre tree planting ' workshop at 1pm on Saturday where David will provide an understanding of the key elements of success.

The emphasis of the workshop will be introducing people to a few tricks to ensuring a good germination, and doing so at low or no cost in terms of equipment. Generally most the things required to germinate plants can be found in the domestic garbage bin or in the shed.

One of the benefits of learning about how to collect and germinate native seed is that you will gain an understanding of what to look for when purchasing native plants.

For instance the type of pots used to grow a tree can have a profound effect on root structure which affects the long term vigour of the plant. There are a range of pots that can significantly reduce plants becoming root bound.

And if you don't have the inclination to grow your own, we will have a selection of locally grown species, endemic to our area for sale. Come along to the Waterwise Garden demonstration site (L9) to see what we have on offer.

If you'd like more specific advice on what to plant in your area or what species to choose for a specific purpose drop by for a chat with Watershed Landcare botanist/grazier Christine McRae.

These events are supported by Watershed Landcare through partial funding from the Central Tablelands Local Land Services and is part of the NSW Government’s Local Landcare Coordinators Initiative, supported through the partnership of Local Land Services and Landcare NSW.