Paddock Plants ID Day
3 November 2008
A great day, with nine participants, mostly local landmanagers interested in knowing what plants they have growing on their properties so they can best manage them - either for pasture management and to retain the biodiversity, or for accurate noxious weed identification and control.
Fiona Leech, Yass District Agronomist presented the day where 10 main pasture plants were tagged around the paddock and participants were taken to each plant and shown what the plant looks like. More importantly Fiona pointed out the key features to each plant which are best to confirm its identity.
For example, the growing stem of phalaris species, is round and cylindrical (where the stem of the cocksfoot plant is flat and angular) and the base of the stem when bent and crushed becomes tinged with red.
Some of the participants who felt ready are going to enroll the 21 month Prograze course which is run by the Department of Primary Industries and provides primary producers with more detailed training on pasture management.
The Ginninderra Catchment Group intends to hold a follow up Paddock Plants ID Day this time next year for those who were not able to attend this year.
Depending on the season, (how much rain there has been and how hot it has become) October/November is the perfect time to attend such identification sessions for grasses and flowering plants as this is when most are in seed
or in flower and easiest to distinguish between. So if anyone is interested in future events keep an eye on this website and the Rural Fringe and other forms of communication, and contact the Ginninderra Catchment Group if there is something of particular interest you would like to see held in the Hall district. We want to hold a specifically native grasses and plants ID day next year also.
A big thank you goes out to Fiona for sharing her extensive pastoral knowledge through easy to understand terminology and also to local experienced farmer John Starr who also provided invaluable input to discussions by sharing his local knowledge of growing variability.
[Thanks to Julie Palmer, Landcare Coordinator, Ginninderra Catchment group, for providing this story and photo]