Watershed Landcare, in conjunction with the Australian Rural Education Centre (AREC), will feature a number of lectures at the Field Days which address sustainability, land management and business strategies to improve sustainability of agricultural operations, whether they be large or small.

The Watershed Landcare talks will be held in the Straw Bale Lecture Room (L40).

Maddy Clonan from Native Seeds will present a talk on 'Using native grasses on your property: Pasture, Revegetation and Gardens'. Maddy will explain how native grasses can provide long term, sustainable solutions on your property, both improving efficiency of your enterprise while restoring and repairing land. Some low growing natives can be sown as lawns, whereas higher productivity grasses are useful for pasture for all stock. On your property, natives can be useful as erosion control, in revegetation of degraded or disturbed land, for resilient pasture, in landscaping and as ground cover in horticultural plantations. This discussion will detail the potential options for the use of natives on your property and how to prepare, sow and manage them.

Doug Purdie fell in love with bees in 2009 when reading about the battle bees are facing in most of the world due to widespread diseases. In 2010 Doug started The Urban Beehive, a boutique beekeeping and honey-making business, with the ultimate goal of safeguarding local bee populations and raising awareness of these threats. The Urban Beehive captures feral bee swarms and places them all over Sydney to help boost natural pollination and to maintain the genetic diversity of honeybees. Doug's talk on Backyard Beekeeping will show you how easy it is to keep happy, healthy bees, and how and when to harvest the liquid gold.

Other topic include 'Stress Free Stockmanship', 'Self Herding', 'How to design a 9 star rated home and how they save you money', 'The tips and traps of investing in agriculture' and 'Taking a systems approach to farm management'.

While you're there amble around and have a look at the beautiful display garden (L8) of waterwise and salt tolerant plants for the Mudgee district. We will also have locally grown native tube stock for sale.

Do you have a mystery plant growing on your patch? Bring it along to have it identified by Watershed's botanist, Christine McRae. For best results bring a good sample, including leaves, roots, stems and flowers seeds if possible. Do you

Do you know the difference between serrated tussock and the innocent native bystanders? Learn how to spot the difference with display plants at the Waterwise Garden (L8).

Come and chat to other Watershed Landcare members, learn about some of our projects and field days, equipment available for hire and how to become a member.

These events are supported by Watershed Landcare through funding from the Australian Government's 25^th Anniversary Landcare grants.