Seasons Greetings

It has been fun posting my "happenings" and I am getting used to the blog. I just up-dated my profile and included my e-mail address farmer-kim@hotmail.com. It appears that there has been a fair bit of activity on my blog with 40 visits so far, which is good, worthwhile posting some up-dates then and obviously going beyond my immediate family. I do save the postings also so I have a bit of a personal diary. I have discovered that the older posts are automatically deleted after about 30 days. Not knowing who is visiting I'd appreciate a quick e-mail so I know who you all are. Thanks!

The last couple of weeks have been busy. It is Friday December 19 and catching up on some office stuff before the weekend. Going back to December 9 I travelled back up to Melbourne with some of the office staff to take part in a Regionally Prohibited Weeds Meeting. Under the Future Farming Initiative the goal is to improve biosecurity at a regional scale by managing regionally prohibited weeds. There are some commonalities to Alberta such as Canada Thistle, (they call it California thistle down here and I think that is a fine name!), Scotch Thistle, Ragwort, St. Johns Wort and Golden Dodder (dodder is a Restricted weed in Alberta). But there are also some exotic species such as African Feather Grass, Serrated Tussock, Gorse, which are new to me. Interestingly enough on the state prohibited list we see Orange Hawkweed, Giant Knotweed and Nodding Thistle. State Probited Weeds have to be eradicated and is done by state staff. Staff surveying is also done for Regionally Probited weeds, but the onus for follow up eradication is the landowners' responsibility and a Notice is automatically issued when Regionally Prohibited Weeds are found. I will be assisting in reviewing species information drafts on the different species drawn up by staff and this standardized process would be helpful back in Alberta. The meeting also had some valuable program evaluation processes for programs, operational as well as client based.

Later in the week I moved onto the topic of Weed Alert and Weed Spotter programs. Weed Alert is a process of preparing for potential foreign weed introductions and it will give me a chance to be directly involved with their weed risk assessment . The Weed Alert has forecasted introductions of Spotted Knapweed, Leafy Spurge and Cypress Spurge, which are common across Western Canada. This is the main weed related link under the department www.dpi.vic.gov.au/vro/weeds A guest speaker from New Zealand Dr. Peter Espie presented a shocking impact of Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) and Mouse Eared Hawkweed (Hieracium pilosella) across New Zealand despite the early warnings as far back as 1884 of the potential impact on native range and natural eco systems. Dr. Espie's comments to eradicate any hawkweed species across all of Australia rather than repeating the NZ experience came with conviction and passion, a good speaker for a large weed function anywhere in North America.

I will be taking in some hawkweed surveying/control of the Snowy Mountain alps January 5-8, one of the few places where Orange Hawkweed has been found. Not bad place to visit either.

This week December 14 brought me back to Melbourne for a debriefing on the Mexican Feather Grass (Nassella tenuissima) Project. http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/weeds_perennial_mexican_feathergrass MFG is a State Prohibited Weed across all of Australia and the discovery of the plant in a Melbourne Garden Center in May by one of the DPI staff brought out an unprecedented response plan/investigation that had far reaching impacts. The seed source is likely south america but the original seed packet came via Chicago and Germany and upon arriving in Australia the seeds were placed in pairs in a cube of organic material and fertilizer for further propagation in green houses. The investigation estimates that 11,500 plants came out of this process. Some greenhouses producing two viable plants from the cube further split the plants which complicated the calculation of how many plants may have been offered for sale. A totally inefficient trace back of the plants sold as a Mother's Day gift also made it difficult to trace the end destination, so the bulk of the activities, once the warehouses and retailers realized the seriousness, was to simply knock on doors, do media blitzs and assist with product recall. 6,900 plants were retrieved back but the work is ongoing. 5 court orders are in the works as there was an effort to cover up, or derail the investigation, which ultimately confirmed the plants sold as MFG via DNA analysis. There is a fair bit of interest in arid gardens, or extremely drought tolerant gardens, which brought on the interest in this plant. It is a tussock species, but relative to Serrated Tussock, which is estimated to cost Austalian agriculture 50,000 millions annually, the impact from MFG is estimated to be 6 times this amount, extremely prolific and totally unpalatable to any stock.

After Monday's debriefing I had a chance to see some country as I travelled across the top of Victoria to take in some surveying for the Regionally Prohibited Weed, Golden Dodder (Cuscuta campestris, a parasitic weed that feeds off of its host plant and has no clorophyll.) In Alberta we see this in sugar beets by another cuscuta species and there are others in this genus natually dispersed across the landscape. The survey was in center pivot irrigated alfalfa and white clover fields, which we surveyed on foot, good excercise after having sat in way too many meetings.

There is another interesting initiative that I had a chance to participate in this week's thursday, of engaging the local shires into doing some weed and pest control on their own roadsides. Considering the Alberta county based roadside vegetation management programs I found the reluctance among some of shires interesting. There will be other meetings coming up strategizing and attempting to win over 5 shires that have dug their heels in and I made short presentation to the working committee how our roadside peogram works in Clearwater County.

Now there is a bit of leisure also. Last weekend I had a chance to take in some field and game range shooting, which I have never tried before. I did some trap shooting many, many moons ago back in Denmark but this was a field simulated set-up with clay targets coming as rabbits in one station, high flying pheasants in another and double quail targets criss crossing at the same time. What I got out of it was a bunch of fun, a sore shoulder and a chance ot meet some neat rural aussie folks.

Last night I had a chance to put "gun" to practice as John Matthews (far right in center photo), who works for DPI also and I along with driver Bruce did some rabbit thinning around the research station. This is night shooting using a ute (pick-up) driven by Bruce and John and I in the back, one spotlighting the other shooting using a shotgun. The rabbits knew quickly what was up and chased back across the road to the tall grass very quickly once the spotlight was on them, so you had to be quick, both the spotlighter and the shooter. A fun night bringing in 3 hares and 15 rabbits in about 1 1/2 hrs.

Concluding this posting I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2009. The forceast for Christmas is 28-30C, I will be with an international crowd invited to the Mibus house on the 25th. Pat Mibus is from Kentucky and other guests are from South Africa, Taiwan, Sweden and China.

With a Melbourne Christmas Tree on Swanston Street

Season Greetings

Kim