2023 Upper Hopkins LMG President’s Report

Jack Tucker, President 

I would like to begin my Winter presidents report with a big welcome to our new facilitator Nick Moll! I won’t go into too much detail as Nicks appointment has been widely covered already through local and social media, suffice to say as a group we are very happy to have him onboard!

In terms of succession from Ayesha to Nick, things have gone very smoothly, and on behalf of the group I would like to thank Ayesha for enabling this and continuing to make herself available to answer any of Nick’s queries.

In this newsletter I would like to talk about the importance of ‘paddock trees’. Obviously large parts of our area are open arable plains country, and due to logistical constraints with cropping it is not practical to establish standalone trees in these areas. Non arable areas which exist on every farm, such as rocky, wet or steep country are all great spots to consider planting stand-alone trees. Trees dotted throughout the landscape are invaluable in terms of habitat and refuge sites for everything from Wedge Tailed Eagles down to the smallest invertebrates. There is also the obvious production benefit of shade and shelter for livestock through lamb survival and increased growth rates. From a political point of view earlier in the year at a federal level there was a call for mandatory shade for all livestock. Given the level of scrutiny livestock producers are now under in terms of animal welfare, we can assume it will be just a matter of time before this is expected.

Paddock trees are not hard to establish depending on the level of stock pressure. Allison from Keringle Native Nursery has supplied some pictures of her commercially available triangular core flute guards which have proven to be very effective in recent years. There is also a picture of a mesh type guard which we have been constructing and using due to the added pressure of our meat sheep. In areas with no stock pressure, eg non arable areas within designated cropping paddocks, it can be as simple as using a basic rabbit proof guard.

Remnant paddock trees are critical habitat for a vast amount of wildlife throughout our area and beyond, and as such it is extremely important to protect them as best we can. It is also important to remember old remnant trees, due to the habitat they provide via hollows, are just as important for wildlife whether they are alive, dead, standing or fallen.

One of the most common mistakes seen throughout the area is cropping or cultivating too close to the trunk of a tree. As a rule of thumb it is widely accepted that cropping under the drip line is both seriously detrimental to the tree, and rarely results in any productive crop. Although crop may establish, shade and competition for moisture and nutrients from the tree generally results in little to no yield when it comes time to harvest. In regard to the tree, they have very small fibrous ‘feeder’ roots which form a network just under the soil surface. Like all plants in their natural state, they rely heavily on a symbiotic relationship with microscopic soil organisms, especially fungi, to perform at their best. Therefore mechanical disturbance through sowing, plus addition of seed and synthetic fertiliser which have been coated with fungicide and insecticide (standard practice) will have undesirable consequences for the tree.

Following on from protecting remnants, it is also vitally important to retain a good level of fallen timber in remnant areas. Fallen timber creates great habitat for a lot of birds and reptiles, and the invertebrates they feed on. One prime example locally is the Brown Tree Creeper. They love too feed on bugs and grubs and are generally only found where there is a good amount of fallen timber to support them. Connecting this back to the previous paragraph, rather than burning or disposing of fallen limbs (especially any containing hollows!), they can be pushed in under the dripline of existing trees, whereby they don’t affect the production area and significantly enhance habitat for wildlife.

As an aside from the production and biodiversity benefits of remnant trees, the cultural aspect can’t be underestimated. It is pretty amazing explaining to children that an old Red Gum, which may be 500 or 600 years old, has actually spent the majority of its life in in a landscape managed by local indigenous people pre European settlement. They are the only living link back to that pre settlement time.

Take home message – remnant trees are a national treasure so look after them!

As always, please spread the word re our group. It is very affordable to join, and gives members the option to access funding to assist with all forms of Landcare, from pest plant and animal control through to reveg  work, fencing off waterways or wetlands and the list goes on in relation to advice and support!

Happy Landcaring!

Jack

A couple of examples of remnant Red Gums, prime habitat trees in the landscape. Photos kindly provided by Wayne Suffield.

2023 Upper Hopkins LMG Treasurer’s Report

Kelly Gellie, Treasurer

What a busy and exciting financial year we have had with our group – it sure has gone quickly! We have been successful with securing funding for several Victorian Landcare Grants this financial year and I know that quite a few of them are well underway with lots of tree guards going up in our community. We have also been successful during the financial year in receiving funding to run quite a few other events which have been outlined in more detail in previous newsletters and watch out for our most recent event ran in April 23 in this newsletter.

At our AGM held in October 2022 it was discussed that we would be increasing our membership fees for the 2023-24 financial year to $33 (GST inc) for a yearly membership and $88 (GST inc) for our three year membership. For those members that are due for renewal please expect a Tax Invoice from me in July with payment details.

We would like to thank all our current members and we are always happy to welcome any new members to our group.

If you have any Treasurer related matters, please don’t hesitate to contact me on treasurer@upperhopkins.org.au

Thanks,

Kelly

If you use waste tyres for silage production from 1 July 2023 you must be registered

From 1 July 2023, if you are using and/or storing 5m³ or more of waste tyres as weights for silage production on your farm(s), you need to apply for a B04 registration with us to make sure you are compliant with the law.  

Application for a B04 registration is easy, free and can be done online in 5 minutes through our portal

If you do not already have an account, please sign up (at the top right of the page) when you enter the portal.

There is also a B04 guidance with step-by-step instructions to help you with the application process as well as more information. 

If you have questions when applying for a registration, please contact us on 1300 372 842 or contact@epa.vic.gov.au.   

For more information, please visit: https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/for-business/permissions/registrations/b04-guidance-on-waste-tyres-for-silage-production

Rare and Threatened Fauna found in Moyston District

Peter Homan, Wildlife Ecologist

Many species of frogs are found on Crown Land and farms throughout the Upper Hopkins region including several species that are listed as threatened. One of the threatened species is the Brown Toadlet Pseudophryne bibronii, also called Bibron’s Toadlet. This is one of many Australian frogs and reptiles named after famous French naturalists, in this case Gabriel Bibron (1805 – 1848). The toadlets are unique in that they walk rather than hop and, unlike other groups of frogs, they do not go to water to breed. Instead, the females lay their eggs in depressions that will later fill with water after rain or where eggs will be washed into nearby dams or creeks. The breeding season stretches from March to June, when males can be heard calling on still nights following substantial rain. As with all frogs the females are mute.

Since 2004, I have been visiting the Merrick property at Moyston West and Brown Toadlets have been recorded there many times. I have also visited the Tucker’s property numerous times since 2017, but despite several intensive frog surveys over the last six years we have not detected populations of the Brown Toadlet. I was due to visit the Tuckers in mid-April, a key time to find Brown Toadlets providing substantial rain had fallen in the preceding days. Fortunately, Adam Merrick reported heavy rain at Moyston West on the Saturday before my visit. Two days later the rain was well gone and the nights were calm and mild. With expectations high, Jack and I visited the Merrick property on the Tuesday night and the Toadlets were going crazy with well over 100 males calling. The males call from small burrows and can be difficult to catch, but after much effort we managed to catch two.

A couple of years ago the Tuckers purchased a lovely bush block north-west of Moyston. The vegetation on the block is mostly Heathy Woodland but several drainage lines exist that lead down to Mount William Creek. I had identified these low-lying areas as potential habitat sites for Brown Toadlets during earlier visits. After the successful night at the Merrick property, we decided to visit the bush block on the Wednesday night when conditions were still calm and mild. As soon as we pulled up to the first potential site we could hear a chorus of about 50 Brown Toadlets. The second site was even better with probably 60 or more calling. Fortunately, we had two excellent hunters with us, the Tucker boys, James and Johnny, and so we succeeded in locating and catching four toadlets (Fig. 1 & 2).

In late March I conducted a fauna survey of this bush block with Diploma of Conservation and Ecosystem Management students from Melbourne Polytechnic. We used several methods to detect fauna, including trapping insectivorous bats. Since European settlement many ground-dwelling native mammals have become extinct throughout south-eastern Australia. However, the microbats have fared much better than other groups of native mammals and over 20 species are still known from Victoria. About six species of insectivorous bats are common in all environments across Victoria including forests, wetlands, country towns, major cities and especially on farms. During this March survey our two bat traps set over two nights captured nine species of bats, including two uncommon species. These were the Gould’s Long-eared Bat Nyctophilus gouldi and Southern Freetail Bat Ozimops planiceps (Fig. 3 & 4).

Acknowledgement: All bats and frogs were captured, handled and released unharmed under the terms of a research authorisation issued by DELWP.  

The Wetland Restoration Program is back!

Ayesha Burdett, Senior Wetland Ecologist, Nature Glenelg Trust

Are you a private landholder interested in helping to rehydrate the Australian landscape, to bring back the range of amazing species that call our wetlands home?

Nature Glenelg Trust’s Wetland Restoration Program on private land is back, and we are here to help you. If you are interested in restoring a drained wetland and improving the hydrology of a site, get in touch!

Read more about the program here: https://natureglenelg.org.au/ngts-wetland-restoration-program-on-private-land-is-back/

We would like to hear from any landholder who has a potential wetland restoration site on their property.  We will take the time to discuss your interests and priorities, working together to assess the wetland’s potential suitability for restoration and what type of support you might need to restore your site. Any wetland restoration will be conducted with for the mutual benefit of the environment and the landholder.

There are a lot of good reasons to get involved in wetland restoration through the WRP. For private landholders, wetland restoration could reduce the hidden costs of managing poor agricultural land while improving local ecosystem services (e.g., pollination, nutrient cycling) that can have direct benefits for a farming enterprise. In the future, there may also be opportunities to become involved in the carbon or biodiversity markets.

To learn more about the program in your region, contact Ayesha Burdett (ayesha.burdett@ngt.org.au, 0429 021 500).

For more information on what the Glenelg Nature Trust is up to follow the link to their May newsletter: NGT News #94: May 2023 – A month to go for Walker Swamp, Mt Burr reserve expansion, Murray Crays released in SA, we’re hiring… and more! (mailchi.mp)

East Grampians Rural Pipeline Update

We’re planning to send you updates as the project progresses. If you have any suggestions or feedback about these updates, please get in touch. You’re also welcome to share this newsletter with others and encourage them to sign up.

Customer Consultative Committee Meeting

On Thursday 4 May, a Customer Consultative Committee was held in Ararat to discuss funding availability and revised staging of the East Grampians Rural Pipeline Project.

GWMWater advised that on 27 March 2023 DEECA provided formal approval for a revised scope to be built within the $85.2m funding that is currently available.

The revised scope builds from the water sources – Lake Fyans and Mt Cole – and allows for future connections to the network. The initial stage captures approximately 70% of meter points identified for the project.

GWMWater will continue to apply for funding for the remaining 30% of meter points and future stages of the pipeline will progress as funding becomes available.

Lake Fyans electrical sub-station upgrade

An upgrade to the power supply at Lake Fyans is complete. The power supply will support a new pump station to service the East Grampians Rural Pipeline.

Landholder engagement

GWMWater will provide an update to all landholders to confirm if they are included in the first stage of construction once contracts are awarded to our construction partners.

For a live map which is updated as the project progresses please visit our website.

*Map provided to Customer Consultative Committee. Zone boundaries and pipe design alignments are an indication subject to environmental and economic feasibility. Please note that the zone/s your property/s were previously located within may have changed.    

Best in the West, Landcare facilitator event

Nick Moll, Landcare Facilitator

In May I attended the ‘Best in the West’ event for Landcare facilitators shortly after stepping into my new role. It was an excellent introduction to the role, and I was glad to meet so many Landcare facilitators, share ideas and hear what they were up to in their regions.

The event, hosted by the Mallee Catchment Management Authority, Wimmera CMA and Glenelg Hopkins CMA, was also a great opportunity to discuss the needs of Landcare and appreciate the importance of Landcare and grassroots actions in Australia.

Raising Rarity: preventing extinction of Victoria’s threatened flora

Wendy Bedggood

The Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria (RBGV) was successful in procuring a grant to fund this 3-year project.  The project starts on 1^st June this year and covers 24 threatened species across Victoria, 11 of them occur only in Western Victoria. RBGV are partnering with a number of organisations and there is a community engagement component to help with searching for and monitoring of these species. There will also be conservation genetics work done on collections already at RGBV as well as the collection of additional material to ensure the species diversity into the future. The gardens will also do work to optimise methods of germination on 11 species which are currently difficult to grow. For 10 species, little is known about how they are pollinated, so baseline data will be collected on pollination for these species, a researcher based at La Trobe university will lead this work. There will be ex-situ collections established as well as some reintroductions to establish new populations for some species.

If you are interested in participating in the searches which are happening this year on the western side of the state, please register with Dr Noushka Reiter at least a fortnight before the planned search. The best way to contact Noushka is by email at Noushka.Reiter@rbg.vic.gov.au

• 10^th July in the South West, south of Lake Bolac, there will be a search for rosette leaves of Pterostylis basaltica.
• 2^nd September on the southern border of the Little Desert in the Cooack area, there is a search for Spyridium furculentum.
• 17^th September there will be a search in the Morrl Morrl area for Thelymitra mackibbinii with an option the following day to assist with monitoring in the Deep Lead area.
• 13^th November in the Mt Rosea Track area to search for Sphaerolobium acanthos.
• 25^th November in the Southern Grampians to search for Pimelea pagophila.

Perennial Pasture Systems – Agtech Road Trip and Showcase Tour of Technology of Farm

Debbie Shea, Facilitator for Girls & Grass Advisory Group, Perennial Pasture Systems

Zoetis, Heidi Sutherland, showing the vaccination applicators (photo supplied)

Perennial Pasture Systems (PPS) has received funding as part of AgriFutures Australia’s Producer Technology Uptake Program to design bespoke projects to increase technology adoption on farm.  The PPS project will be in three parts:

• Part 1 – tour of a local lamb meat processing plant and a local farm, which has been completed.
• Part 2 – a workshop to identify individual goals and opportunities on-farm for improvement in efficiency/productivity through technology. This will take place on 31^st May, 2023 in Ararat.
• Part 3- a three day tour into South Australia to visit the Struan Best Practice AgTech Demonstration Farm and some other leading farms in the district. This will take place from 4^th – 6^th June, 2023.

Part one of the PPS – AgTech road trip and showcase tour of technology on farm was recently completed.  The group had twenty of its members undertake a tour of the Frew Foods International plant in Stawell. Owner Robert Frew explained the operation and how they have embraced technology on the floor and how they use the individual Electronic Identification tags on the animals to collect data on each carcass. 

PPS members were given a great opportunity to see how what they do on-farm relates to the process through the plant.  One big advantage for farmers is the feedback from the data collected including individual carcass weight, vaccination damage and animal health issues on individual animals.   Farmers can then modify their management systems and or animal husbandry practices if necessary. “It was a real eye opener to see the robot technology in action, to learn about where the end product goes and just what we can do on farm to maximise the potential profit per animal”, was one comment made from a PPS member.

The group then moved to ‘Overdale’ at Concongella, this property is owned and managed by the Holden family.  A further fifteen members joined the day activities where we all enjoyed a light lunch prior to presentations from Mal Nicholson and Sue Holden giving their enterprise background on genetics, what technology they use both in the office and in the sheep yards, what markets they target, what data they collect and how they use it and a little on sheep husbandry practices.

Kate McCue from Agriculture Victoria gave a short talk on biosecurity on farm how important it is now and will become even more so in the future.

Elke Hocking from ALM Tech, did a great job of bringing it all together- in what technology we saw in operation at the Stawell plant and how that relates to the on-farm operations.  She covered topics including, how to get lambs to hit the market specifications, benchmarking your ram team, RamSelect, where to set your targets, data and what to do with it, growth rates, carcass data, genetic data and animal health considerations for example carcass trimming due to incorrect methods of vaccinating animals.

Zoetis representative Heidi Sutherland then took participants through an animal health session. Heidi showed via a power point presentation the importance of the right size needles and the correct vaccination applicators to assist in implementing the correct technique for injecting sheep.  It is farmers duty of care towards their animals to follow best practice science and vaccination methods to prevent illness in animals.  The group moved into the undercover sheep yards to experience hands on the applicators and practice vaccination technique.  No animals were vaccinated on the day, Heidi demonstrated how to hold the animal correctly to minimize stress and to protect yourself from accidentally injuring yourself.

For more information on Perennial Pasture Systems and events you can refer to the Website: https://www.perennialpasturesystems.com.au/

or Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1750963505149672

 or contact Project Manager, Rob Shea, via mbl: 0438 521357 or email: yadin061@tpg.com.au

Reconciliation and NAIDOC Week art exhibition

The opening of the exhibition to celebrate Reconciliation and NAIDOC Week was held on 2 June at the Lake Bolac Information and Business Centre.

The exhibition was opened by Ararat Rural City mayor, Jo Armstrong, and Gunditjmara elder Adeline Thomas gave a heartfelt Welcome to Country.

It included paintings, prints, wood-carvings, clothing and emu-feather necklaces, and featured works by Kirrae Whurrung artist Brett Clarke.

Brett’s works explore the rich cultural history of his people of south west Victoria. He spoke about his early life and how his grandfather and his mother, artist and musician Patricia Clarke, influenced his work.  

Brett has been involved with the Eel Festival since its inception, taking part in many of the Healing Walks, performing on the lakeside stage and running a variety of cultural workshops.  

His mother’s painting, ‘The Healing Walk’, was created for the first Eel Festival in 2005, and was a prominent part of the exhibition. Brett, who writes and performs music as ‘Boorook’, led the audience in his own beautiful song in Gunditjmara language.

Lake Bolac College junior school students contributed colourful paintings of emus and honey ant dreaming and Lake Bolac Kindergarten children created beautiful yarning sticks.

The exhibition opening, which was enjoyed by an enthusiastic group of local and visiting art lovers, was supported by funding from Reconciliation Victoria. 

There is still time for you to attend. The exhibition of affordable artworks closes on 9 July. 

WESI Project new WeedScan App

The WESI (Weeds at the Early Stage of Invasion) team was back on the road again in March. This time our travels took us to the north east of Victoria to deliver weed ID training at the DEECA Benalla office.

The WESI weed ID training (on Wednesday 22 March 2023) was delivered to 30 participants from DEECA, Parks Victoria, Landcare, North East Catchment Management Authority, Gecko CLaN Landcare and others. WESI takes great joy in getting out to different Country and meeting the various people dealing with weeds across the State. Whilst we are there to deliver training, we learn so much visiting a region and listening to participant’s stories.

WeedScan App and website training

The WESI training held in Benalla was a collaboration with DEECA’s WESI and Agriculture Victoria, and NSW DPI . A component of the training was an introduction to the new (soon to be released) WeedScan app and website.

WeedScan is an artificial intelligence-based tool for identifying, recording, and managing priority weeds across Australia. WeedScan contains 83 priority weeds species (more species to be added soon) and was available to participants to try out at the Benalla training sessions.

The 2-hour workshop provided training on how to use WeedScan and included a practical hands-on application of WeedScan using photos and live samples of priority weeds, some of which included the WESI weed display and State Prohibited Weeds from Agriculture Victoria. The public invited to participate included weed and biosecurity officers, individuals involved in ‘boots on the ground’ weed management, Landcare members, weed spotters and others interested in weeds.

The WeedScan project was developed by the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions, CSIRO, and NSW DPI with input from other states and territories, including Victoria. Funding for WeedScan was provided by the Commonwealth of Australia through the National Landcare Program’s Smart Farming Partnerships.