by Barbara Bansemer, WMSSA Member
In 2008 we bought our 41ha property in Rockleigh and set to work on the worst weeds (ignoring the rampant salvation jane (Echium plantagineum) and wild oats (Avena spp.).
At that stage there were scabious (Scabiosa atropurpurea) along the roadside, false caper (Euphorbia terracina) rapidly heading to our boundary and assorted thistles (Onopordum acanthium) and galenia (Galenia secunda) in the creek line. Each April/May we had to hunt out and spray bridal creeper (Asparagus asparagoides), each October/November monadenia (Disa bracteata). All was going moderately well using hand-pulling, spraying or cut & swab techniques with glyphosate. Bridal creeper, scabious, false caper and galenia were starting to look conquerable.
Figure 1: Galenia everywhere after the fire.
Figure 2: Barbara’s husband in a sea of weedy saltbush.
Then on 14th January 2014 everything changed. Lightning scored a direct hit and fire swept everywhere. The 6,500 local provenance seedlings we had planted over five winters, and 8ha of direct seeding were burnt to a crisp. In our naivety we hoped that maybe the wild oats and cape weed (Arctotheca calendula) seeds had succumbed. We anticipated prolific growth of wattles (Acacia sp.) which need heat to activate germination. We were dreaming.
In September the land was a spectacular panorama of purple salvation jane and yellow cape weed, with oat grass as prolific as before the fire. As for the wattles, the seedling score so far is about fifty, from thousands of burnt bushes. In the creek bed the weeds had a blank palette to work on. Tens of thousands of galenia seedlings sprouted. Aided by 125mm of rain in February, weedy saltbush (Atriplex prostrata) germinated along the entire 400m creekline and thistles of various species came up by the thousand.
Figure 3: Before pulling 31 wild aster.
We organized a working bee and twelve pairs of willing hands removed all of the weedy saltbush, for the time being anyway, while galenia and thistles continued to flourish. Through winter and spring we continued to pull out the saltbush, a job made progressively harder as the rushes regrew. Thankfully thistles are easier to spot. Bright green, they poke out above the rushes and shout “We are here!” Pity about the nasty prickles! We chop the flower heads off before cutting the plants into short sections.
Just when we thought we were winning (silly us), by the middle of November a new enemy had appeared. Before the fire several large flowering wild aster (Aster subulatus) plants had been removed, but unfortunately the fire failed to destroy their seeds. Now by late January we have pulled out thousands of seedlings hiding in newly-grown rushes, risking eyes poked out by sharp tips of sea rush (Juncus kraussii), and collecting many spikes in the backs of our hands. Every visit, we find hundreds more.
Salvation jane, far too hard! Friends up the road have been assiduously removing it for 22 years, and every time there is a deluge of rain, thousands more seedlings appear. We’ll keep plugging away, but sometimes we think “isn’t it time to give up and take a long cruise?!”
The free weed control app provides essential information about the control of weeds declared in South Australia under the Natural Resources Management Act 2004. It is a particulalty good resource for contractors or people working in large scale weed control.
The weed control app includes:
- control recommendations for over 100 declared plant species
- chemical and non-chemical treatments
- information on the safe use of herbicides
- colour photographs of each species for identification.
The weed control app provides information from the Weed Control Handbook for Declared Plants in South Australia. In addition app users can:
- record the location of weeds
- keep a personal log of control activities
- phone or email regional Natural Resource officers
- send photos and text of high risk weeds.
The app will be updated annually as chemical uses and plant declarations change.
The SA Weed Control app is produced by Biosecurity SA in partnership with the eight Natural Resource Management regions and is available from Google Play (for Andriod devices) or iTunes App Store (for Apple devices) or at http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/biosecurity.
Dr. Kassim Al-Khatib, Weed Science Professor, University of California, Davis
Identifying non target crop and ornamental plant damage from herbicides has become much easier, with the launch of a new online photo repository by the Statewide IPM Program, University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Figure 1: Snapshot from the Herbicide Repository.
Dr. Kassim Al-Khatib, weed science professor at UC Davis and director of the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM), has gathered nearly a thousand photos of herbicide-damaged plants, drawn from his own and others’ research. The images are cataloged to show damage that can occur from 81 herbicides in more than 14 specific herbicide modes of action, applied in field to demonstrate the symptoms or when known herbicide spray has drifted onto the plant.
Each image is characterized with the name of the plant, mode of action of the herbicide, and notes the specific symptoms of damage. Together these photos provide a comprehensive archive of damage to over 120 different crops and ornamental plants by known herbicides, which users can easily compare with what they see in the field.
Also included in the repository is information about the modes of action of various herbicides and an index of example herbicide trade names and active ingredients. The repository can be found at http://herbicidesymptoms.ipm.ucanr.edu
Pearson, H. & Hill, R. 2014, “Risks for New Zealand’s Biosecurity from Internet Trading of Plants”, Ministry for Primary Industries New Zealand, 19th Australasian Weeds Conference
Cox, A. 2014, “Online Seed Traders Put to the Test”, Invasive Species Council, Online: http://invasives.org.au/blog
Weeds ordered over the internet are a growing international biosecurity risk, and in New Zealand (NZ) they are increasingly detecting post-border incursions.
Figure 1: Mexican feathergrass (Nasella tenuissima)
Traffic volume is expanding, and plants are arriving faster than ever before. New plants in NZ need a risk assessment clearance under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 prior to importation, with plants already in NZ subject to relevant Import Health Standards. The countries of origin are also required to certify that material conforms to NZ import requirements, and are free of visually-detectable regulated pests. NZ biosecurity authorities have a non-statutory “National Pest Plant Accord” (NPPA) with the Nursery and Garden Industry, and NPPA-listed plants cannot be sold, propagated or distributed in the country. Purchases over the internet by-pass this accord increasing the risk of naturalisation of both plants and their associated pests (Pearson & Hill 2014). Across the ditch, in Australia, it is a similar story.
The Invasive Species Council of Australia recently tested how easy it is to buy prohibited weeds online, and found quarantine seriously wanting. Purchasing mexican feathergrass (Nasella tenuissima) seeds over eBay was relatively quick and simple, and proceeded with no warnings about the potential risk of bringing prohibited seeds into Australia. Within about a week the seeds arrived. One hundred seeds of mexican feathergrass were received in the mail from New York and one hundred thousand seeds from Hong Kong (Cox 2014).
Figure 2: Snapshot of “Trade Me”, a NZ website now removing illegal listings
In NZ in 2013, 4.1 per cent of all post-border investigations were internet purchases, mostly seeds. NZ quarantine selects international mail for inspection using intelligence, x-ray image analysis and detector dogs. Over the last five years mail arrivals have dropped by 18 per cent, but the express freight incursion pathway has increased by 9.5 per cent. Consignment declarations are sometimes deliberately misleading to avoid inspection, and some domain names sound local (e.g. flowerseeds.co.nz) but ship directly from overseas (Pearson & Hill 2014). The Australian example shows this to be true. One of the mexican feathergrass packages received by the Invasive Species Council listed the contents as “Gift: Plastic beads 1 pack” (Cox 2014).
Complaints to internet suppliers, particulaly eBay, are very difficult. There is often no obvious way to reach the seller if there is a problem and the complaint links are often ineffective. When the ACT Government complained to internet suppliers over a number of months, their complaints were ignored. Not long after their complaints, in 2009, Bunnings and Big W were caught selling hundreds of mexican feathergrass plants. A national recall was issued and the companies were fined. Sometime later the ACT government found ten mexican feathergrass plants growing on a Canberra property with the windblown seeds piled over a metre high and half a metre thick against a house door. 10cm of topsoil had to be removed as part of the eradication effort and five years later, seedlings are still being removed during annual checks (Cox 2014).
Illegal internet sales are recognised as a growing biosecurity threat (Cox 2014). Education of both e-commerce traders and buyers is needed to reduce this threat (Pearson & Hill 2014). Internet trading platforms such as eBay should prevent traders from selling prohibited species and improve their complaint mechanisms (Cox 2014). The Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) NZ has developed good cooperation from NZ’s largest on-line trading site, “Trade Me”, in removing illegal listings, but systematic monitoring of sites is also required, along with effective self-regulation of on-line sites (Pearson & Hill 2014). In Australia, when it was revealed to the biosecurity inquiry the ease of online purchases of prohibited seeds, the jaws of the senators dropped. The NSW rural newspaper “The Land” ran a front-page story in November 2014 about The Invasive Species Councils online seed ordering experience and officials started to take notice (Cox 2014).
Illegal internet sales are recognised as a growing biosecurity threat (Cox 2014). Education of both e-commerce traders and buyers is needed to reduce this threat (Pearson & Hill 2014). Internet trading platforms such as eBay should prevent traders from selling prohibited species and improve their complaint mechanisms (Cox 2014). The Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) NZ has developed good cooperation from NZ’s largest on-line trading site, “Trade Me”, in removing illegal listings, but systematic monitoring of sites is also required, along with effective self-regulation of on-line sites (Pearson & Hill 2014). In Australia, when it was revealed to the biosecurity inquiry the ease of online purchases of prohibited seeds, the jaws of the senators dropped. The NSW rural newspaper “The Land” ran a front-page story in November 2014 about The Invasive Species Councils online seed ordering experience and officials started to take notice (Cox 2014).
Since then, the Department of Agriculture has requested eBay to stop Australia being a destination for particular traders and eBay have improved their procedures. The Department of Agriculture have also tried to contact sellers using other platforms, not entirely with success. The Australian Government Department of Agriculture needs to determine the nature and extent of online illegal sales and to develop a compliance strategy (Cox 2014). In 2012, the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) advocated an international response and NZ is currently collaborating with the USA, with interest also from Canadian and South African biosecurity authorities (Pearson & Hill 2014).
The community can play a valuable role in preventing online weed incursions by reporting suspected illegal sellers to biosecurity authorities and complaining to website trading sites. To facilitate this work the Invasive Species Council has set up Border Patrol Eyes Online, an online spotters network to help close down trade in dangerous new weeds and animals. All you have to do is sign up as a ‘Border Patrol Officer’ and undertake to regularly monitor online sales of particular prohibited species. Get involved at: http://invasives.org.au/project/border-patrol-need-eyes-online/ (Invasive Species Council 2014).
Note: the seeds purchased by the Invasive Species Council have since been safely destroyed to ensure they no longer pose a risk, and authorities have been notified (Cox 2014).
