Member Groups; The Lismore Land Protection Group, Weering-Eurack Landcare Group, Leslie Manor Landcare Group, Cundare Duverney Landcare Group, Weerite Landcare Group & Mount Elephant Community Management
Funding Secured for Revegetation Plantings for 2018 & 2019
2018 Revegetation Plantings – Last Call
Will complacency allow weeds to beat us?
Improving soil condition with stubbles
Darlington platypus survey
Daylesford/Hepburn Springs Trip
Coming up
Mount Elephant open day
Open every Sunday from 1pm to 4pm
Revegetation Project Funding Secured for 2018 & 2019
The Corangamite Lakes Landcare area has been successful with two applications in Round 3 of the Australian Government’s 20 Million Trees Program. The projects are
“Restoring Eucalyptus Woodlands to the Victorian Volcanic Plains to improve connectivity and increase habitat area across the NORTHERN Corangamite Lakes Landcare Area”, which has received $96,100 to plant 38,000 tubestock.
“Restoring Eucalyptus Woodlands to the Victorian Volcanic Plains to improve connectivity and increase habitat area across the SOUTHERN Corangamite Lakes Landcare Area”, which has received $85,800 to plant 34,000 tubestock.
These two grants will provide funding to revegetate 60 hectares with species selected from the Victorian Volcanic Plains Woodland ecological vegetation community over the next two years. The plantings will add to the hundreds of hectares revegetated by our members over the past 25 years and help to create “stepping stones” in the landscape to connect woodlands to our north around Skipton with the Pomborneit Forest (and onto the Otway ranges) in the south to provide migration pathways for species. The benefits for participating landholders are increased shade and shelter for stock, and improved amenity of their property.
Thanks to the 50 landholders who have previously expressed their interest in participating – start preparing those sites.
It only takes 3 or 4 years to go from this.....
... to this
2018 Revegetation Plantings – Last Call
We still have capacity to accommodate some more participants in our revegetation plantings for this year. This is likely to be the last round of 20 Million Trees Program, and the last opportunity for substantial funding for shelterbelts / revegetation. So if you are interested, don’t delay. Contact Rod ASAP, as we are now ordering our tubestock in preparation for planting in August – September.
Will complacency allow weeds to beat us?
It seems every few months some new weed is identified or found in our area, or the spread of existing weeds is found to be more extensive than first thought.
African Weed Orchid is present in the very best of our remnant native grasslands, amsinkia is spreading along roadsides and down waterways, fleabane and twiggy mullein are on many roadsides while its relative greater mullein is spreading across paddocks as is twinning toad flax, paddy melons and afghan melons are on many properties and along waterways, and Chilean needle grass spreading around Cressy township, along roadsides and on properties. Not to mention boxthorn quietly creeping through the sugar gum plantations.
Unfortunately many of these weeds can be controlled, if the infestation is treated early. In fact managing weeds is much like fighting a fire. Contain the outbreak, and work from the edges in, make sure you get any isolated occurrences early before they increase in size, and slowly chip away at the main infestation. Importantly make sure you don’t enhance or assist the spread by driving through weeds, grazing them with stock or including them or their seed in hay or grain. Also follow up any control activities to get what you missed the first time and monitor the area.
But, rarely are any weeds treated early, when there are only a few individual plants. Unfortunately it is often only once the infestations spread and become highly visible or start impacting productivity is any thought given to them. By then it is usually too late and any control effort is much harder and significantly more costly, and those responsible shrug their shoulders and say it’s too late, too hard or can’t be done, and the weeds continue to spread.
With harvest finished, what to do with stubbles?
With harvest now finished it won’t be too long before it’s time to deal with the stubbles. Options for straw, and wheat straw in particular are probably pretty limited this year, with plenty of frosted cereal hay around, leaving the match and burning. Alternatively you could use the stubble to improve soil condition, but if you are considering this there are a couple of “must dos”, as all too often practices fail because some important aspect is overlooked.
This is especially important with stubble incorporation, as it does require an element of luck anyway (that being getting some decent rain events in Autumn), so it is best to reduce or eliminate any risks or variables that you can manage, these being
- the timing of the incorporation such that it is done while there is sufficient time and soil temperature for microbial activity to decompose the stubbles before sowing and increase the chance of receiving rain events to assist this, and
- the amount of nutrients, (particularly nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur) that you apply at incorporation to aid the microbial breakdown. Without adequate nutrients there will be insufficient microbial activity to decompose the stubbles, and when you do apply nitrogen at crop sowing, the microbes will use the nitrogen before the crop does.
In February last year Justin and Ross Alexanders incorporated a 6 t/ha wheat stubble across 20 hectares and applied three different treatments, these being;
Addition of extra nutrients (N,P,K and S) to meet the biological demand of soil microbes
Application of stubble digesters (beneficial fungi) onto stubble
Addition of a biological blend of humates, nutrients and energy source to soil and stubble digesters
Control (stubble incorporated only)
Stubbles across the rest of paddock were burnt.
“We had no problems sowing the paddock to barley in May” said Justin “as we had good Autumn rain to stimulate the microbial decomposition of the stubbles and probably enough residual nutrients in the soil to assist this to the point that there were no issues with hairpinning or blockages to the seeder. By about July we could see that on all the plots, except where we added extra nutrients, that the crop was struggling a bit for nitrogen, but it didn’t appear too bad”.
Another site inspection in October showed that the on most plots a significant proportion of the stubble had decomposed, however on both the extra nutrients treatment and biological blend treatments there was better decomposition with very few larger fragments of stubble remaining and the soil was more friable, with better soil structure and less “cloddy” than on the stubble digester treatment, control plot, and the rest of paddock.
Control Plot - Stubble Incorporated, no additional nutrients
Stubble Incorporated with additional nutrients - note it has better structure, more friable and less cloddy and less "large" fragments of straw than the control.
In terms of yield, all plots except the added nutrients plot, yielded about 5.1 to 6.0 t/ha across about 60% of the area, with about 30% yielding 4.3 to 5.1 t/ha, and about 10% of the area yielding above 6.0 t/ha. However on the added nutrients plot, the yields were better, generally about 5.1 – 6.0 t/ha across about 65% of the area, with perhaps 30% of the area yielding above 6.0 t/ha and about 5% yielding 4.4 – 5.1 t/ha.
For comparison the adjacent section of the paddock where stubbles were burnt, yielded above 6.0 t/ha over about 60% of the area, with about 35% of the area yielding 5.1 to 6.0 t/ha.
“The plot with extra nutrients certainly out yielded the other treatments, showing the benefit of the extra nitrogen in assisting the stubble decomposition” said Justin. “Although extra mid-season nitrogen was applied right across the paddock, on the treatments which had no extra nutrients applied (when the stubble was incorporated), the yields show that microbes have robbed the crop of the midseason nitrogen to use in stubble decomposition. In hindsight we could have increased our mid-season nitrogen application a bit, but overall the result of the stubble incorporation is about as expected. The soil condition is improved, and it showed that extra nutrients are essential to help the stubble decomposition. We are encouraged enough by the results to do more this year.”
If you are thinking of doing some stubble incorporation and would like to know more about the project contact Justin or Rod. The project was funded by a Landcare Australia Special Grant from their Workplace Giving Program.
COMING UP Darlington platypus survey – Wednesday 7th March
Following on from the platypus survey along the Mt Emu Creek at Skipton last October, another survey will be held to assess the activity of platypus in Mount Emu Creek at Darlington. Interested people are invited to come along and help spot platypus in the waterholes along Mount Emu Creek at Darlington. No experience is necessary, just patience.
The survey will take place on Wednesday 7th March, 2018. Meet at the Darlington Hall at 6.30pm, for a discussion and cuppa. Then the survey itself will take about 1 hour. Bring binoculars and wear suitable clothing and foot wear as some sights will have long grass. No dogs please. Register your interest with Shari 0409 070089 or email llpgsharim@westnet.com.au
Daylesford/Hepburn Springs Trip, March 12th-15th
A reminder to anyone interested in our 2018 Landcare bus trip to please register your interest with Shari. The 3 day, 2 night trip will cost about $300 per person (depending on numbers) which includes all meals, accommodation, travel and entry fees. Contact Shari for more information llpgsharim@westnet.com.au
This newsletter has been funded by the Australian Federal Government’s “Victorian Volcanic Plains Small Grants” Program and the Victorian State Government “Local Landcare Facilitator Initiative”
Lismore Land Protection Group
19 High Street (PO Box 28) Lismore, Victoria 3324 Ph: 03 5596 2384 Landcare Facilitators:
Rod Eldridge: 0458 390146 email: llpgrod@westnet.com.au Shari McConachy 0409 070089 email: llpgsharim@westnet.com.au Find us on the Landcare Gateway here
