Inside IHSG 2025: What the World’s Herbage Seed industry Are Talking About

I’ve just got back from the 12th International Herbage Seed Group (IHSG) Conference in Launceston, Tasmania, thanks to a scholarship from the AgriFutures Pasture Seeds Program – and it was by far the best conference I’ve been to.

For a full week I was surrounded by people at the leading edge of herbage seed and pasture systems: breeders, researchers, agronomists, seed growers and industry leaders from across Australia and around the world. While the program was mostly temperate-focused, there were a lot of common threads with the tropical and subtropical systems I usually work in, and plenty of ideas I’m keen to try back home.

Here is a link to the program, definitely worth a read! https://www.tsig.org.au/ihsg-2025-program

Why I went

IHSG was a chance to do three things at once:

• See where the global herbage seed industry is heading

• Stress-test some of my own thinking against international experience

• Pick up ideas, contacts and context to feed back into Pasture Portal as we expand into the temperate market

A major global theme: less chemistry (herbicide, pesticide), more systems and tighter regulations

One of the strongest messages across the week was the gradual reduction in available chemistry and for weed, pest and disease control around the world. Nutrient application rate boundaries was also a hot topic.

A large number of people across the globe all talked about losing important actives through tighter regulation, resistance and market pressure, and what that’s doing to herbage seed production. It really drove home that relying on “just one more product” is not going to cut it.

The focus is shifting towards integrated management:

• Smarter rotations and break crops

• Using pasture and crop competition to suppress weeds

• Better use of grazing pressure, timing and diversifying seed grower cash flow

• Strategic cultivation and cover crops where they fit

• Being more careful with the chemistry we still have so it lasts longer

Listening to those stories felt a bit like looking into our own future if we are not careful. It reinforced for me that species choice, establishment, grazing management and whole-farm planning are not “nice extras” – they are the foundation.

From lecture theatre to paddock

The structure of the week worked really well. In the lecture theatre there were talks on new cultivars, seed production agronomy, endophytes, seed quality, pest and disease management, storage, irrigation and more. Out in the paddock we visited Tasmanian research sites and commercial farms growing ryegrass, clovers, chicory and other herbage seed crops.

A chicory crop can be seen below, interesting this crop is heavily grazed by sheep before lock up date. Yields of around 500kg of sheep liveweight gain before lock up and a seed crop!

Being able to stand in a crop, talk through irrigation layouts, rotations, weed pressure and harvest setups, and then link that back to the science made the learning much more real. As someone used to working with tropical and subtropical pastures, it was great to see how temperate systems are put together on the ground, not just on a slide.

Pollinators vital to ensuring yields in these crops, bees key to this, although research into flies producing positive outcomes to date.

This was especially useful given where Pasture Portal is heading. We’re steadily building out our temperate coverage, and seeing the species and cultivars Tasmanian and temperate growers rely on – and how they are actually managed – will help make sure the information we provide lines up with real practice, not just trial results.

A genuinely global crowd

Another big highlight was the people. Over the week I spoke with agronomists, farmers, researchers and industry folks from Denmark, England, France, Sweden, Germany, Kuwait, Canada, the United States, Uruguay, Argentina, New Zealand and all over Australia.

Everyone was keen to share what they were working on, but also to hear about the tropical and subtropical work we’re doing here – from germplasm and carbon monitoring through to the Pasture Portal platform. It was interesting to hear how different industries are structured, what their key challenges are (climate, water, labour, markets, regulation) and where they see opportunities.

Despite the differences in climate and systems, the core questions were much the same:

• How do we pick the right species and cultivars for each paddock?

• How do we keep pastures productive and persistent under pressure?

• How do we juggle profitability, livestock performance and environmental outcomes?

What this means for Pasture Portal users

For me, IHSG wasn’t just a chance to tick off a conference – it was a chance to learn, to test ideas and to make sure Pasture Portal stays anchored in real, current industry thinking.

Coming out of the week, I’ll be folding what I learnt into:

• Better temperate content on Pasture Portal as we add more species and cultivars

• Sharper agronomy notes that reflect integrated management where chemistry is under pressure

• Stronger links between temperate and tropical/subtropical systems for mixed and transition regions

Pasture Portal will always aim to be a practical, paddock-level tool. Trips like this help make sure there’s solid science, real farm practice and active industry networks sitting behind what you see on the screen.

If you’d like to see where things are up to, jump into the Pasture Picker and explore options for your rainfall, soil and region – and keep an eye out as we continue to build out the temperate side of the platform over the coming months.

And as always if you have feedback or think we have gotten something wrong or need adjusting please let us know!