Sweeping generalisations about weed management are not serving the community or the environment well. Could we please separate the discussion into different, though related, areas?
1. Urban parks and public space. This is a focus for many participants in discussion, and the results of trials of the steamweeder will be of great interest.
2. Rural roadsides. Decades ago, the slasher and its side arm were introduced as an alternative to wholesale roadside spraying. The results are beautiful in many circumstances, but the machinery also spreads serious environmental weeds such as Morning Glory, Madeira Vine and, topically, Jumpseed. The side arm smashes Coral Tree into fragments, all of which are capable of growing into new trees. Now we find ourselves needing herbicide to control weeds that spread from the roadside to adjacent private land. We’re possibly not imagining the steamweeder getting around our whole rural road network and dealing with the terrain?
3. Bush regeneration in native vegetation. Skilled bush regenerators efficiently remove competitive exotic vegetation using small quantities of low-toxicity herbicide. Hand weeding can produce excellent results in some circumstances, depending on the weed species, though sometimes herbicides can be more appropriate (avoiding soil disturbance and enabling translocation through a whole plant from stem injection) as well as more efficient. Herbicide toxicity?
Please check your sources. Read about ‘predatory open access publishing’ in Wikipedia and refer to lists of pseudo-scientific, pseudo-peer-reviewed journals.
4. Industrial-scale agriculture, based on GMO crops, with poor regulatory oversight, driven by unscrupulous multinational companies. Truly terrible, but no-one is doing this in Byron Shire.
Weed management is complex and it will be helpful to recognise that what works for parks and gardens may not be appropriate for other situations. In addition, everyone can work together to prevent some of the weed problems, for instance by preventing the dumping of garden refuse in the bush and ensuring that invasive plants are not bought, sold and planted.
Strategies that prevent the spread of weeds, or perhaps eradicate them completely, will obviously reduce the need for herbicide in the future. We can even aspire to respectful sharing of informed opinions. At the end of the day we all want good things for our environment.
Barbara Stewart, Mullumbimby
Weeds are our no 1 ally on this Continent! Boldly repairing denuded landscapes caused by our actions! They soak up excess nutrient and water runoff, acting as a filter between remnant vegetation and man made landscapes. Until we cease this war on weeds and start accepting the changes that have been wrought on this continent we will continue to be trapped in the pain of the past. I urge Bush Regenerators to have a closer look at their motivations and a closer look at the landscapes they seek to re habilitate. We cant change the past. Hop on a plane and have a look at the Byron shire from the air. You will see clearly the insanity of trying to restore roadside verges and farmland to pre colonisation vegetation types. We are all weeds here in this nation now. The sooner we learn to co-exist the sooner our landscapes will be restored and by restored this may mean that soil building is an urgent major priority, and that weeds and non indigenous plant species have a major role to play in this new story of the Australian Ecology.