Hugh and Katie Finlay manage a 30 hectare farm in Central Victoria, including a commercial stone fruit orchard and fruit tree nursery. The farm also includes a range of small enterprises run by others under the banner of the Harcourt Farming Co-op, including a dairy, market garden, and bush foods plot.

Since 2013, Hugh and Katie also have been educating others in how to grow organic and regenerative fruit through their business, Grow Great Fruit. Perennial horticulture is a fairly new area for me, but this conversation reveals some very familiar themes.

Hugh and Katie focus on the soil above all else, and have seen how taking care of soil biology by adding organic matter, fostering plant diversity, and elimination of all synthetic inputs supports healthy trees that are resilient to pests and disease and require little in the way of pest and disease management.

While many of their strategies are applicable at much larger scale than their now downsized operation, Hugh and Katie are also passionate about the value of smaller scale ... about the value of smaller scale enterprises to not only support resilient agricultural businesses, but also connected and thriving regional communities.

Please enjoy this conversation with Hugh and Katie Finlay. And if you're an orchardist yourself or interested in perennial horticulture, don't forget to check out our website for all the resources and events that we're rolling out through our Orchard Resilience project

Links and resources
Grow Great Fruit - https://growgreatfruit.com/
Harcourt Organic Farming Co-op - https://hofcoop.com.au/about/
YIMBY Compost - https://www.yimbycompost.com/

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Murray Gomm is a regenerative farmer and winemaker based near Albany in Western Australia. With his partner Pamela Lincoln, he runs Oranje Tractor Farm, a small organic vineyard and orchard that’s become known for its focus on soil health, biodiversity and carbon-positive farming.

Since the late 1990s, Murray has transformed a degraded property into a thriving, diverse landscape producing wine, fruit, and olive oil. The farm integrates cover crops, composting, mulching, and biological soil management instead of relying on synthetic fertilisers and chemicals.

Murray is a long-time advocate for working with natural systems and is passionate about sharing the message that healthy soils lead to better produce and stronger communities. He regularly speaks on sustainable tourism, carbon farming, and the intersection of agriculture and ecology.

In our conversation, we talk about the value of having a peer group to learn with rather than operating in a vacuum, the role of cover cropping in building diversity and unlocking crop health, soil and plant health monitoring that have helped Murray grow his best tasting peaches ever, and why he now sees himself as a ‘manager of ecological relationships’.

Links and resources

Oranje Tractor Wine and farm: https://www.oranjetractor.com/

Soils for Life’s Orchard Resilience project: https://soilsforlife.org.au/orchard-resilience-project

The Orchard Underground WA program for commercial fruit and nut growers, delivered by Soils for Life and RegenWA: https://soilsforlife.org.au/the-orchard-underground-program/

Murray has also worked with RegenWA as a cover crop demonstration site: https://regenwa.com/

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, we'd love to hear from you - reach out on social media or at [email protected].

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Dairy Convos is an online discussion series bringing together dairy farmers, agroecologists, consultants and fellow farmers. The sessions provide an opportunity to ask questions, share experiences and discuss topics such as drought and flood recovery, pasture nutrition, multispecies pasture establishment and more in a relaxed and interactive format.

In this Dairy Convo, Jade Killoran, an independent multispecies cover crop advisor and researcher, shares practical guidance on establishing multispecies pastures, selecting species, and managing grazing to support pasture persistence, productivity and soil health.

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Emily House began her career as a geologist before an unlikely path led her into ruminant nutrition. After moving to New Zealand, she started working with two vets who wanted to shift from treating livestock disease reactively to preventing it, which meant looking closely at pasture as the major component of the diet.

Emily brings a background in earth science to her work interpreting pasture and soil analysis for animal health and performance. She was part of the team that developed the DietDecoder™, an online tool that assesses the mineral profile of pasture and flags risks to animal health before they show up as clinical problems.

In this episode, she explains why testing the mineral content of pasture goes further than the more familiar measures of dry matter, crude protein and energy that many farmers already use. She talks through real examples, from calcium and milk fever at calving, to copper deficiencies caused by excess sulphur and molybdenum in the soil, and how these mineral gaps can affect everything from hoof health to wool quality. We also discuss the range of responses available once a problem is identified, from targeted supplementation through to adjusting fertiliser regimes and building more mineral-dense pasture through species diversity, along with some striking parallels between what we're learning about animal nutrition and human health.

In this episode
- Emily's path from government geologist to ruminant nutrition consultant
- Why pasture mineral testing reveals more than standard dry matter and protein analysis
- How mineral deficiencies and excesses show up in animal health, from milk fever to coat and wool quality
- The DietDecoder™ tool, and how it's used seasonally around key events like calving and mating
- Addressing mineral imbalances through supplementation, fertiliser decisions and pasture diversity
- Parallels between livestock nutrition and the gaps in our understanding of human nutrition

Links and resources
DietDecoder™ – dietdecoder.nz, including the quote from Dr Pat Poletti referenced in this episode in the FAQ

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, get in touch on social media or at [email protected]

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Dairy Convos is an online discussion series bringing together dairy farmers, agroecologists, consultants and fellow farmers. The sessions provide an opportunity to ask questions, share experiences and discuss topics such as drought and flood recovery, pasture nutrition, multispecies pasture establishment and more in a relaxed and interactive format.

In this Dairy Convo, John Moor, a biological farming mentor and sixth-generation farmer shares practical insights into:
🌱 Getting started with foliar applications,
🌱 Managing the transition process from granular to foliar applications,
🌱 Equipment options for foliar applications, and
🌱 Avoiding some of the common challenges farmers face along the way.

To find out more about the Dairy Resilience Project, head to the Soils for Life website: https://soilsforlife.org.au/dairy-resilience-project/

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Dairy Convos is an online discussion series bringing together dairy farmers, agroecologists, consultants and fellow farmers. The sessions provide an opportunity to ask questions, share experiences and discuss topics such as drought and flood recovery, pasture nutrition, multispecies pasture establishment and more in a relaxed and interactive format.

In this Convo, Chris Eggert from Oxhill Organics shares practical insights and lessons from his family's transition towards farming practices that regenerate soils and landscapes for more resilient dairy systems, including navigating flood recovery and extended dry periods.

To find out more about the Dairy Resilience Project, head to the Soils for Life website: https://soilsforlife.org.au/dairy-resilience-project/

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Brian Wehlburg is one of Australia’s most highly regarded Holistic Management educators and a board member of Holistic Management International and the Australian Holistic Management Cooperative. He has delivered training and consulting to businesses, land managers, families, environmental groups and pastoralists all over Australia, as well as in New Zealand, USA and Zimbabwe. He is also a farmer himself, having experience growing crops in Southern Africa, working  as a pasture and cattle manager in South West Queensland and managing a mixed-species property in New South Wales.

This is one of the longer conversations we’ve featured on the podcast, but it easily could have been twice this length given the depth of Brian ’s well of knowledge and experience. We talk about his perspective on regenerative grazing, about the key insights of Holistic Management, the deeply held paradigms that often prevent people from seeing these insights, the practical steps that he has seen work to help people get started, and the positive life changes that can result when people succeed.

This episode is one of a series of interviews we’re doing with graziers and educators involved in the development of our recently released guide to grazing for soil and landscape regeneration.

Links and resources:
Brian’s consultancy Inside Outside Management - ⁠insideoutsidemgt.com.au⁠ 
Soils for Life’s Guide to Grazing for Soil and Landscape Regeneration - ⁠soilsforlife.org.au/practice-guide-grazing-soil-landscape-regeneration⁠ 
More about Holistic Management from the Savory Institute - ⁠savory.global⁠
Andre Voisin - ⁠en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Voisin⁠ 
Jan Smuts, Holism and Evolution - ⁠en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism_and_Evolution⁠ 

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, we'd love to hear from you - reach out on social media or at [email protected].

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Grant Williams is a dairy farmer at Hallora in West Gippsland, Victoria, where he and his wife Leesa run Willora Farms - an almost 600-cow operation across 430 hectares. He has been a generous and engaged contributor to the dairy community for many years, and previously served on the Board and as Chair of GippsDairy.

Despite having been an early adopter of robotic milking, Grant describes himself as cautious about making changes on the farm. Over the past decade, however, he has made a change that many dairy farmers wouldn’t dream of, transitioning the whole farm to multispecies pastures, and in the last four years, cutting out all synthetic fertilisers.

In this episode, Grant describes how he ‘fell into’ multispecies pastures, how his early trials didn’t work out the way he hoped, and how he eventually became confident that he could profitably roll out multispecies across the whole farm.

Links and resources:
Soikee machine - soilkee.com.au
Soils for Life’s dairy resources and activities - soilsforlife.org.au/dairy-resilience-project

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes or guests, we'd love to hear from you - reach out on social media or at [email protected].

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Hear from the Soils for Life team and board on our plans for the next few years, as well as an engaging panel discussion with a panel of farmers, on opportunities and barriers to change across agriculture.

https://soilsforlife.org.au/

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