Meet the team: Kate Finger

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BCG are lucky enough to host their fourth Agriculture Victoria Agronomist Development Program (ADP) graduate.

A University of Melbourne graduate, Kate Finger has embraced the Mallee and Wimmera lifestyle and will be assisting BCG’s research operations until the end of June and return for harvest.

I was born and raised near Mansfield, in the Victorian High Country on the family farm, where my family operate an Angus Cattle Stud. We run around 250 breeders on 1200 acres.

My parents are both originally from closer to Melbourne, Dad from a family of orchardists in Wantirna, Mum from Healesville where the cattle stud was started by my grandfather in 1972.

Many years later and with the herd expanding coupled with my parents love for the high country, the stud was relocated to our current property.

The soil type on our farm is quite varied. We have a mix of sandy/silty river flats to clay loam hills often with a very thin soil profile. Average annual rainfall is 700mm and growing season rainfall (April to October) is 450mm.

Our herd is self-replacing but we have sold excess heifers to China, privately or in the saleyards.

We select approximately 40-50 bulls to sell at our annual on-property sale, with bulls being sold to a diverse range of beef producers (commercial and stud operations) from Eastern Victoria, Southern New South Wales and more recently to Tasmania.

The male calves that do not make the grade are sold at the annual weaner calf sales.

The biggest challenges that we have faced over the years include coping with the climatic extremes from severe droughts to flooding rains.

We have also been faced with family member ill-health, increasing competition in the Angus stud game and deciding on the future direction of the family business as a result of succession planning discussions.

As part of the Agriculture Victoria ADP program I moved to Birchip in mid-March. From the moment I arrived everyone I have met has been very welcoming.

I have been getting involved with the community through netball, even though I have never played before.

It has been a great way to meet people and everyone there has been very supportive and encouraging. 

So far, my experience with BCG has been fantastic. The staff are extremely friendly and are more than happy to share their wealth of knowledge and answer any questions.

I have already been given lots of opportunities to get involved with the work BCG carry out including soil sampling and processing, trial site selection and pegging out, seed packing, sowing and irrigating as well as helping to run a mouse experiment.

What I am looking forward to the most about the Agriculture Victoria ADP graduate program is working at my three placements, which are Agriculture Victoria in Mildura, BCG and Agrivision in Swan Hill. In the process gaining valuable experience in the different roles of an agronomist.

I am also very interested to learn about cropping in the low rainfall zone of Victoria and the unique challenges and opportunities that are present in this region.

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