Bush For LifeSpring 2012Number 9

The Bushcarer

You are one of over 700 bushcarers actively managing more than 300 Bush For Life sites encompassing more

than 3700ha of bushland in South Australia

Spring edition

Well didn’t we celebrate winter in a spectacular

fashion this year! A huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped make The Big Weed Front such a success.

Sunday 12 August saw about 100 bushcarers gather at Willunga Hill Bush For Life site as we attempted to highlight the threat of bushland weeds by creating The Biggest Weed Front. We think we might have succeeded!

The morning consisted of treating weeds such as Montpellier broom using strategic minimal disturbance methods. And with some carfeful planning we were able to make sure that 100 pairs of feet didn’t trample the good bush.

Many hands made light work and after a couple of ours we had made great progress defining and working along weed fronts.

We then broke for a sausage sizzle lunch and celebrated our efforts with a good old fashioned ‘catch up for a chat’ amongst the stringybarks.

Thanks to everyone for helping to show what we can do! Check out the photos in the Spring edition of ReLeaf magazine.

It’s brushcutting season...

Brushcutting season is well underway and now is the

time to be slashing annual grasses to reduce seed set and encourage more native grasses. It can also be used to prepare larger perennial grasses for follow up spot spraying and to remove flower heads from bulbous weeds to help reduce seed production.

To achieve the best results from slashing, timing is of the upmost importance, and follow up slashing is often required. It is not possible for regional coordinators to get to all of their sites that would benefit from slashing at the optimum time, so having BFL volunteers willing to help out is vital. This can be simply by doing the slashing on your own site or by helping out on other BFL sites.

It is necessary to complete a training course in brushcutter use before you can use one on your site (even your own). This year was the tenth year that BFL has run Brushcutter Use and Maintenance Workshops and so far about 140 people have undertaken the training.

On completion of the course, we have a number of brushcutters that can be booked out and borrowed for use on your site. And for those who want to, you can also use them on other sites under our Brushcutting Program or by linking up with other trained volunteers to help on each others sites. So, if you want to get some slashing done at the optimum time, consider booking into the brushcutting workshop next year. Often you

Bush For Life News

Cover photos from top to bottom: Hardenbergia violacea, Pterostylis robusta, Astroloma conostephioides

may only need to do a couple of one hour brushcutting sessions on the site to achieve good results.

Flowers of Para Wirra

To celebrate 50 years of Para Wirra Recreation

Park, the Friends of Para Wirra have produced the book Flowers of Para Wirra. Copies can be purchased at the park office, Ph: 8280 7048.

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Trees For Life

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Brooklyn Park 5032

Ph: 8406 0500

Fax: 8406 0599

bfl@treesforlife.org.au

www.treesforlife.org.au

Species Identification - Rice Millet and Austrostipa platychaeta

secateurs, shears or even a brushcutter), then spot spraying with glyphosate once the flush of new growth appears, up to a month later.

But remember – there’s no great rush and you can always collect and remove the seed heads each year until you get around to treating all of the tussocks.

By Leanne Mladovan

BFL Support and Development Officer

We all know it – grasses are some of the hardest

plants to identify, and most bushcarers are doing well if they can tell a grass from a sedge or a rush. But what if one of the lovely native grasses on your site has an evil twin? There are certainly some weedy grasses that can be easily confused for their native counterpart, perhaps none more so than the introduced rice millet (Piptatherum miliaceum) and the indigenous flat-awned spear-grass (Austrostipa platychaeta).

Both are perennial, clumping grasses with that ‘caney’ structure that gives them the look of ‘miniature bamboo’. When not flowering, they can look remarkably similar, although the weed rice millet tends to have a more lush, leafy/green appearance. But it is the flower/seed heads that will help you to tell them apart like a pro. For a start, they don’t call them spear-grasses for nothing – every Austrostipa species has its mature seeds equipped with a long, wiry awn, extending from the tip of the sharp-

Austrostipa platychaeta and its evil twin

pointed seed. In comparison, rice millet, as it’s name suggests, has smaller and rounder seeds that make poor weapons.

How to treat Rice MilletRice millet is a common

weed of roadsides and along creek lines. If you are unsure of the identification, wait until the flower heads appear (most commonly in spring) and try again – of course, you can always ask your BFL regional coordinator to confirm the identification. The root system of rice millet makes handpulling and digging a poor choice for treating this weed. If you only need to treat small amounts of rice millet, the tussocks can be cut and swabbed. It may take you several goes to completely kill the plant. However, if you are dealing with a lot of rice millet and swabbing is too daunting, you might be better off cutting the tussocks (with

PLANT SIZE AND FORM LEAVES FLOWER HEAD (PANICLE)

WEEDPiptatherum miliaceumRice milletOnly member of its genus in Aus.

Up to 1.5 metres

Caney tussock

Flat and glossy, up to 30cm long and 4-7mm wide

Open and sparse. Tends to droop30-40cm longEach flower <5mm long, producing a small, rice-grain-like seed

NATIVEAustrostipa platychaetaFlat-awned spear-grass1 of 39 Austrostipa species in SA

Up to 3 metres, especially if growing up through a shrub.

Caney tussock

Leaf sheaths tightly rolled /blade expanded or weakly rolled, Blades up to 25cm long, 1-8mm wide

When developing, has a silky drooping appearance, often with a purplish tingeAs it matures it becomes open and sparse, before contracting again into a bristly head.10-40cm long.Each flower up to 1.5cm long with an awn up to 9cm long

Drooping rice millet seed headBristly mature head of A. platychaeta

Open panicle structure of rice milletSource: www.flora.sa.gov.au

NATIVE - A. platychaetaWEED - Rice millet (P. miliaceum)Source: www.luirig.altervista.org

foliage scorch, only 3 plants had minor amounts of green foliage (less than 5%). Photo points were also established on the site to monitor change in vegetation cover. Data was collected at one year and two years after the initial fire to check the results from the treatment methods.

Each treatment was applied to 5 different sizes of olives to vary the data. Treatments included:1. Cut stems at base and remove

– drill & fill immediately2. Cut stems at base and

remove – wait for regrowth then drill & fill

3. Leave stems – drill & fill immediately

4. Leave stems – wait for regrowth then drill & fill

5. No treatment – control

MethodThe trials were set up

in February 2010, with 4 experimental treatments plus a control. Height of the olives and percentage of estimated canopy cover were also recorded. Olives selected for the trial had almost complete

By Matthew Endacott

BFL Field Officer

Introduction

On the 16th January 2010 a fire went through a small

section of a Bush For Life site at O’Dea Reserve, Pasadena, in the Mitcham Hills -including a stand of feral olives (Olea europaea). This provided an opportunity to trial minimal disturbance techniques used in the Bush For Life program in a post-bushfire situation. The information that has been collected will help those managing areas of bushland affected by olives post-fire.

The key question posed was: what are the most effective treatment methods for olives post-fire? More specifically: does removal of above ground biomass after the fire impact the effectiveness of the drill and fill method, and does allowing epicormic regrowth of the lignotuber prior to application of herbicide enhance the effectiveness?

Case Study - Managing Olea europaea

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Post-fire minimal disturbance techniques on Olea europaea

ObservationsIn July 2010 epicormic growth

was recorded. No olives that had been treated post fire had signs of regrowth. However, of all 15 olives that were not treated with herbicide (treatments 2, 4 & 5) the percentage of estimated surface area of visible lignotuber with epicormic shoots, 3 had less than 30% coverage, 8 had 30 – 70% coverage & 4 had more than 70% coverage. On the 19th August 2010 olive treatments 2 & 4 that were allowed time to establish regrowth were treated with herbicide.

In March 2011 - 1 year on from initial treatments data was collected. There was no epicormic growth on any of the treated olives. The only regrowth observed was on those olives that had no treatment.

The last data collection was held on 8th February 2012. All original stems in the canopies of

the 25 olives had not survived the burn. Treatments 1-4 were all successful by reducing epicormic growth of the lignotuber to 0%. However, of the control olives that had no treatment the percent surface area of visible lignotuber with epicormic shoots was now more than 70%.

SummaryResults showed all treatments

were equally effective, producing 100% mortality; however treatments six months after the fire, following regrowth, were obviously more time consuming with new growth getting in the way of the drill. The untreated (control) olives showed vigorous regrowth and after 2 years, most had a canopy higher than the original with new shoots formed from the lignotuber. Therefore, the fire appeared to actually benefit the growth of olives if they are left untreated.

We will monitor the trials for several more years to ensure there is no regrowth from the lignotubers, as there is evidence that olives can re-

sprout after 8 years. Of note: there was no observed olive seedling regrowth from the fire. However this could be due to the type of burn and it could differ if the fire happened in another season.

The results provide a number of management options including removing the biomass after fires that may improve access for other bush regeneration activities and improve the appearance of the bushland for the community, but this needs to be balanced against the benefits of leaving dead olives as habitat. I would recommend going in to the site as soon as possible and treat as many of the olives as possible before they become worse. This would essentially halve your time spent treating the olives in future.

The fire has also stimulated an explosion of regeneration of indigenous understorey species that have lain dormant in the seed bank, giving encouragement to the site carers to continue tackling the olives and other site issues like Boneseed (Chrysanthemoides monilifera ssp. monilifera).

I was asked to talk about these results at the 2012 Weed Management Society of South Australia Conference. To access maps & detailed photos from this presentation follow the link: http://www.wmssa.org.au/documents/MatthewEndacotPost-fireminimaldisturbancetechniquesonOleaeuropaea_000.pdf

O’Dea Reserve became a Bush For Life site in 2004, when neighbours concerned about the olives on the adjacent reserve contacted the Council. They were put onto the Bush For Life program and since that year have been hard at work on a monthly basis drilling olives and removing boneseed.

Figure 1: Olive post fire, before treatment

Figure 2: Six months after fire, epicormic growth in untreated olives

Figure 3: Two years after fire, epicormic growth in untreated olives

Figure 4: Post fire regeneration of grassy understorey, February 2012

BFL Volunteering

Adelaide & Mt. Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board

South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board

Northern & Yorke Natural Resources Management Board

The Bush For Life program is supported by the South Australian Government through the Adelaide & Mt. Lofty Ranges NRM Board, the Murray Darling Basin NRM Board, the Northern & Yorke NRM Board and the Native Vegetation Council; participating local governments & corporate landholders, and Trees For Life members and donors.

Supporters:

Eagle Mountain Bike Park

Eagle on the Hill - approximately 12km South East of the Adelaide

Mountain bikers with a passion for the environment!

If you enjoy mountain biking on some of Adelaide’s best trails you may notice that behind the scenes there are a number of volunteers who build and maintain the trails. There are also a small number of riders who commit time once a month to focus on conserving one of the jewels that is Eagle Mountain Bike Park bushcare site.

‘Eagles’ has everything – sloping gullies, creeklines, hill sides and ridges. These are home to over 200 species including some important populations of threatened species.

If you would like to be involved the group work there monthly, and there are also opportunties for you to join BATs and mini-BATs. Bring your mountain bike and you can go for a ride after bushcaring!

For further details contact Matt Endacott on 0448 888 582 or email matthewe@treesforlife.org.au

Bush For Life ProgramTrees For Life

Bushcare groups that meet regularly

We all know how energising it can be to work alongside

others in a group; people to chat with, share ideas, ponder questions, share knowledge and most of all, just enjoy each others company and that sense of pulling together for a common cause. The success and growth of our BAT program and other organised ‘group activities’ is testament to this.

Over the years in BFL we have seen more and more individual ‘adopt-a-site’ volunteers organising themselves into small groups so that they can work together on-site at the same time, rather than independently. Four carers at Karinya Reserve West at Eden Hills for example, have been meeting every fortnight on Sunday morning for the last 15 years. Part of this small groups’ success is no doubt due to the inspiration they draw from each other.

For this reason we have decided to dedicate a portion of the quarterly Group Activity Schedule to advertising ‘bushcare groups that meet regularly’, in addition to the organised BATs, mini-BATs and BMDs that are supervised by our Regional Coordinators. Bushcarers that are intersted in joining in with a local group will be asked to contact the local Regional Coordinator for more information.

Not all ‘groups’ will want to put their details in the schedule - it will only be for those who

Karen, Wendy and Julie at Karinya Reserve West (David absent from photo)

OPEN DAY, Coppin’s Bush, Littlehampton

Some fun and interesting things are afoot in

Littlehampton as Bush For Life, Littlehampton Primary School, the Friends of Coppin’s Bush and the District Council of Mount Barker are working together to put on a Spring Walk at the Coppin’s Bush Bush For Life Site. This event also forms part of the District Council of Mount Barker’s Biodiversity Month celebrations.

If you are free on Sunday 16 September join us at 1:45pm for a guided tour of the site, a spot of wildflower identification and special student presentations on biodiversity and conservation.

We’ll finish the day with afternoon tea at the school. Come & support the kids, the local community and the bush!

would like some extra hands. Regional Coordinators will be asking individual ‘groups’ if they wish to be advertised in the schedule over the coming months.

Keep an eye out in next years Group Activity Schedule for a ‘group’ near you!