Shenton Park Field Station Open Day 2024

Biennially a spotlight is shone upon one of The University of Western Australia’s lesser-known facilities, the Shenton Park Field Station. This, of course, is where CEI:AgER proudly resides. This year was no different to 2022, with a sunny day in September promising an exciting event for fellow researchers, students, and interested members of the public to know more about what goes on at this facility tucked in with neighbouring bushland. (A whole lot of interesting stuff!)

A opening speech by the Director of the UWA Institute of Agriculture (Hackett Professor Kadambot Siddique)

The event was officially opened by The WA Minister for Agriculture and Food, the Hon Jackie Jarvis MLC, with accompanying speeches from  the UWA Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor (Professor Tim Colmer), the Director of the UWA Institute of Agriculture (Hackett Professor Kadambot Siddique) and the Head of School of the UWA School of Agriculture & Environment (Associate Professor Matthias Leopold), to set the agenda and tone of the day.

It was fantastic to host the various groups of visitors who stopped by throughout the day to listen to the CEI:AgER team presenting from the workshop, where we tried to not let our presentation be overshadowed by the new, cool CNC milling machine operating in the background. While there invariably were questions on what the big, cool machine was, there were plenty more questions spanning our research across agriculture and native seed restoration.

The CEI:AgER team presenting from the workshop alongside the Seed Flamer and Weed Chipper

The usual suspects, the Weed Chipper and the Seed Flamer, were proudly on display with members of the team explaining the exciting research progressing in each of these fields. This includes the development and testing of a new active tool attachment for in-crop weed control that requires less energy to chip out weeds and operates more efficiently at faster tractor speeds. And, on the Seed Flaming side, this is currently full steam ahead with flaming of tested native seeds for research and commercial purposes, as well as the trialling and testing of flaming new species to use in ecosystem restoration.

The CEI:AgER team

As usual, the team enjoyed the numerous thoughtful questions posed by the visitors and were grateful for everyone who stopped by to listen and chat with the CEI:AgER team. CEI:AgER applauds The University of Western Australia’s team who organised another successful Shenton Park Field Station Open Day.