John Vatikiotis and John Lloyd, both from Horticulture Innovation Australia (Hort Innovations), delivered sessions on how Hort Innovations is now overseeing the National Turf Levy Investments—both research and development and marketing.

Grower delegates gather for a group photo at NIB Stadium during Turf Australia’s NXGen Field Day event.

Growers at the Forum took away some great ideas about how they can implement changes in their own business to help it develop and be more successful, from more successfully growing and installing turf to promoting the benefits of it more widely.

Turf Australia’s 2016 Roadshow of Forums – A big success!

Turf Australia’s 2016 roadshow of forums attracted 150 participants nationally and provided a range of informative presentations and interactive workshops covering social media, accounting for prof it, precision turf farming, levy investments, and identifying different personality styles to help improve how we communicate with colleagues, family members and customers.

One of the most important sessions was when growers had the opportunity to discuss the future direction of the National Turf Levy. Te issue was debated at each state forum through an interactive workshop run by Pat Abraham from Key Link Solutions. Tese sessions allowed growers to participate in the process of deciding where the levy funds should be invested as part of the Industry’s Strategic Investment

98 Plan for the next five years.

With Social Media becoming more effective as an efficient way to connect and engage with existing and potential customers, Cynthia Mahoney from Cynthia Mahoney and Associates provided some startling facts and figures and explained how turf growers can generate more business by using social media.

Knowing what aspects of your turf farm business are profitable and what aspects need to be ‘worked on’ was the focus of the sessions presented by Greg Sharpe from 3D Accounting. Greg showed how some simple accounting techniques, such as:

• Creating a Financial Scorecard System

• Calculating your Return for Effort • Establishing Effective pricing

John Keleher from Australian Lawn Concepts (ALC) focused on “Precision Turf Farming” and shared how ALC has adapted and implemented precision agriculture technology, which was of great interest to all delegates.

At the New South Wales Forum, Mick Battam from AgEnviro Solutions reported the final results from the recent Turf Nutrition Program, which involved an on-farm analysis from 19 different turf farms.

To finish off each forum, Cynthia Mahoney ran an interactive workshop on identifying and dealing with different personality types in the workplace. According to the feedback received from the 150 participants, this ‘Communication Styles’ workshop was a key highlight of every forum, along with the networking drinks and dinner, of course.

For more information, contact Turf Australia’s communication manager, Katie Fisher, by calling her at her mobile phone number: 0402 444 878 or by emailing her at: editor@turfaustralia.com.au.

John Vatikiotis shared details on how Hort Innovations is overseeing the National Turf Levy investments.

Katie Fisher is communication manager for Turf Australia.

Photos courtesy of Turf Australia TPI Turf News November/December 2016 16