Top End Native Plant Society newsletter
TENPS newsletter
Top End Native Plant Society
Top End Native Plant Society newsletter; Top End Native Plant Society newsletter; E-Journals; PublicationNT
2017-10-01
Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).; This publication contains many links to external sites. These external sites may no longer be active.
English
Top End Native Plant Society; Periodicals; Plant; Darwin Region
Top End Native Plant Society
Palmerston
Oct-17
application/pdf
Copyright
Top End Native Plant Society
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/274133
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/425655
3 TENPS Committee Meeting Committee meetings are held every second month and members are most welcome to attend. The next committee meeting will be on January 10th, 2018 from 7.15pm. Venue: Blain Electorate Office, next to Pizza Hut, Oasis Shopping Centre, Palmerston. TENPS October guest speaker Linda Luck: A New Approach to Managing Gamba Grass The October meeting talk was given by TENPS CDU Scholarship winner Linda Luck, an honours student at CDU. Linda studied Gamba Grass at a site at Rum Jungle, looking at ways to control the soil seedbank of Gamba Grass, Andropogon gayanus. Gamba Grass is a fast growing, resource efficient species native to Africa. It was introduced into the Top End as a pasture species as it grows in a range of soil types, thriving just about anywhere, except in boggy areas. However, it is highly competitive and tends to form monocultures. With its clumping nature and extremely tall growth for a grass, it is highly flammable, threatening savannas and invading undisturbed ecosystems. Currently it is estimated to cover over 15000 square kilometres on the NT. It is also widespread in Queensland, SE Asia, India, China and South America. There are three main methods used currently to manage Gamba Grass: slashing or grazing, fire and spraying. These methods focus on emerged plants only. They are resource intensive aiming to disrupt the reproductive cycle, but they dont address the issue of existing seeds. Lindas study targeted seeds already present in the soil. The new approach to be used in conjunction with traditional treatments was to treat the soil seedbank just before germination. The management implications found: Residual herbicides significantly reduced gamba emergence Treatments did not affect native woody seedlings However, this method may not be suitable in all savanna soils Approach may be adapted to be used with other management methods eg. mulch showed reduced rates of emergence and significantly reduced rates of seedling survival eg. competition trial failed but this may still offer a viable option