UMCCC Meeting

Where:  RB Smith Community Centre, 262 Crawford St Queanbeyan

Our next UMCCC general meeting will be held in Queanbeyan on the 12th August. Our guest speaker will be Dr Greg Bender from Australian Soil Management who will talk with us about soils and African lovegrass. He has provided the following abstract for us.
 
THE APPLICATION OF COMPOST TO IMPROVE SOIL QUALITY AS A MANAGEMENT TOOL TO CONTROL THE NOXIOUS WEED AFRICAN LOVEGRASS IN THE MONARO REGION OF NSW
 
In 2014 the NSW Environment Protection Authority contributed funding for trials using compost to tackle one of the worst weed problems in Australia. The purpose of this project is to evaluate
improvements in soil quality as a means to improve management of the weed African Lovegrass
(Eragrostis curvula) in the Cooma Monaro district of NSW. The project is running for three years
from 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2017.
 
Large areas of the Cooma – Monaro Shire have soils of low fertility with low productivity. This means it is difficult for farmers to justify the cost of weed management using herbicides particularly as this method is proving ineffective. Consequently, Lovegrass is already established over a high percentage of these soils, particularly the 80,000 hectares of grazing land between Canberra and Cooma. African Lovegrass has also become established in areas selected for native revegetation.
 
This project is designed to demonstrate that an increase in soil fertility in combination with specific
management practices will be an effective weed management program. The design and
implementation of soil management plans to permanently increase soil fertility will encourage
ongoing competition from improved pasture species to reduce the establishment of weeds.
 
The project is supported by NSW EPA with compost and staff time provided free-of-charge by Cooma Council. Local agronomists are providing assistance with trial design and ongoing weed assessments. Additional support is coming from the Bredbo Landcare Group.
 
If you want to know more or read up on this before Greg’s talk, an article and radio segment on the project from ABC Rural can be found at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-15/compost-tocombat-lovegrass/5672376
Contact: Dr Greg Bender, ASM Pty Ltd, phone 02 6181 9226 / 0410 480 165, email greg.bender@australiansoil.com.au