Wine and Tasmania

Wine making at Henty Estates is a complex process but the skills of Peter and Glen Dixon has gained them envious status within the Australian wine industry with their 2006 Shiraz making the top 100 wines of Australia. I really like their 2005 Shiraz also with a distinct Blackberry flavour from their choice of yeast and oaks. Wine tasting for me will never be the same, having developed a much more critical palette to the one I had before coming down here!!

But there is a lot of work involved in the running of a vineyard, from pruning the grapes, putting nets over to help against the birds, taking the nets down, watching the sugar levels to math the right picking time and then recruit the picking crew. The last bit of Shiraz had to be picked as the grapes were well ripened and the weekend allowing for the best recruitment of friends and neighbors. It unfortunately coincided with cool wet autumn weather descending on the farm. The work got done, perhaps leaving a few extra grapes on the last few rows for the birds and the sheep that would be allowed to graze in vineyard after wards.The sheep especially like when it is time for the Chardonnay. The grapes are crushed only and the sweet leftovers are "to die for" in a sheep's world. Then after the red varieties (Shiraz and Cabinet Shauvignon) have fermented in the vats for a week or so and taken on the deep red color from the tannins there comes another good time for the sheep at Henty Estates as they fight over the alcohol laden grape pulp that is hauled out in the paddock after the liquids are pumped off. Many a sheep stagger around dazed by the effects of the magic feed, the older ones likely saying: "I remember last year and how lousy I felt the next day, better take it easy".

This blog will also take you to Tasmania, a fantastic little island south east of the mainland accessed by air or in my case a ferry ride of 12 hrs. The island is very different in landscape as well as climate from the extremely wet west coast to the drier south east. The lakes and the mountains are stunning and almost on par with the "Rockies"! A great many hikes were enjoyed in and around the famous world heritage sites of Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair and an awe inspiring river cruise on the Macquarie Harbour, a massive bay just inside the ocean, and up the slow flowing and very deep Gordon River, which flows into the bay and out to sea.










Back to work in the next blog, wild dog management and weed spread risk assessment.

Autumn in Victoria

Just sent in another article for Grainews so copying a bit of that for you reading pleasure !!(sorry Kristina, too boring I know).

It is a strange feeling, experiencing autumn in a country that boasted temperatures in the mid forties just a couple of months ago. We still see the trademark Aussie sunshine almost on a daily basis. It hasn't rained significantly for the last couple of months, with the exceptions of a couple of very local cloud bursts, but the air is cooler now and the night temperatures dropping to 4-5 degrees. Daylight Savings is erased once again and the sun sets around 5:30 pm giving the weather a startling resemblance to an Alberta mid September day, albeit no night frosts. These cooler days combined with the sunshine are quite enjoyable and a nice break from the heat experienced earlier.

The humidity is also considerably higher and the heavy dew every morning has revitalized the plant community. A gradual greening is evident across the Western District of Victoria and folks are gearing up for crop seeding awaiting the signals from Mother Nature that the last heatwave of the summer is behind them. Seeding too early can cause seedling mortality from a late blast of hot weather but there are deadlines just like in Alberta. Not unlike Alberta’s short growing season, the crops in Victoria need to take full advantage of the short cooler and wetter part of the year, ripening before the scorching temperatures return next summer. Seeding too late causes drought impact such as blast off or small kernels before reaching full crop development.

Work wise I have some interesting involvement with the Australian Fodder Industry Association (AFIA) who wishes to explore the Alberta Weed Free Hay Program. Back in Clearwater County, Rocky Mountain House, Alberta the Agricultural Service Board (ASB) has supported this provincial program since inception back in the early nineties and local hay producers have enjoyed pride in growing certified weed free hay and a slight premium to the prices paid for the hay. On behalf of the province, Clearwater ASB has been the coordinator of the special program-unique twine that identifies the weed free hay for participating municipalities.

The Alberta program was adopted from the US-based North American Weed Management Association and is strictly geared towards ensuring that there are no viable plant components in the hay and achieves this via an actual field inspection prior to cutting. Upon passing the field inspection the above mentioned special twine is issued to the grower, twine produced in Salt Lake City, Utah for all or North America. Alberta Agriculture assists the program with financial contributions towards the additional cost of the special twine over that of ordinary type allowing it to be made available to hay growers at a price similar to ordinary twine and alleviating this factor being a stumbling block to participating in the program.

The Department of Primary Industries in Victoria (DPI) has a wonderful program called Weed Stop that increases the awareness of weed seeds hitchhiking to new places via vehicles and equipment. This program would do well back in Alberta and I will actually be able to take some training in this while here. However, the true preventative aspect of weeds spread that certified weed free hay offers, before seeds end up in vehicles and equipment, has peaked DPI’s the AFIA’s attention.
With so much of the hay harvesting happening through contractors here in Victoria many of these contractors have become certified in Weed Stop, completing a day long course and advertising their services as “Weed Stop Certified” and supported by the Agricultural Contractors Association of Victoria (ACAV). AFIA feels that they would be in a good position to market a Victorian Weed Free Hay Program to its members in conjunction with the Victorian Department of Primary Industries. When this article appears in Grainews it may be good timing for Alberta hay growers to make inquiries into this great but often overlooked Alberta Weed Free Hay Program that is available throughout participating Municipal Agricultural Service Boards.


Besides the content of the above article I have had another busy month following the week long stint in the Bush Fire Recovery Incident Command Center that I wrote about a month ago. This meant some catch-up and I had to spend a fair number of days on the road, which made up-dating the blog really awkward.

From the last blog in Benalla I detoured slightly across the northern part of Victoria on my way back to Hamilton and travelled a bit along the majestic Murray River near Echuca, where the river meanders slowly on its way from the "alps" to the southern ocean south of Adelaide in South Australia, a distance of about 2,500 km. There are several structures on the river to maintain water levels for irrigation, the overall aquatic eco-system and recreational activities, such as a leisurely trip in one of the old paddle steamers used as tugboats to bring in the massive gumtrees to the sawmills back in the early days. You can see the warf's ability to adjust to varying river flows. The warf used top span about 500 meters, when the river traffic peaked in early 1900.


It was shocking to see the effects of the drought and water scarcity. Sadly speaking there is a disturbing trend to sell off the water rights to generate much needed cask flow for many farmers. The water allocations are not attached to the property like in Alberta and, once sold off, thousands of acres along the Murray River are no longer in production, as the lack of rain has not allowed for dry land farming. Only high value vegetable crops, large scale dairy, fruits and vineyards afford the high costs of water and there are some very emotionally charged debates over the strategies for managing the declining water flows in the Murray, which with the global warming prospects will have serious consequences for many communities in the immediate future.
Back in Hamilton the Chardonnay grapes were right for the picking and a fun day was had by picking crew of friends and neighbors of Peter and Glen Dixon at Henty Estates. You will note that even the sheep had a good time, munching on the grape stalks.













Once back at the office I had to book a number of visits across the state the following week to catch up on my work plan such as meeting with the Landscape Protection Manager Brendan Roughead, who many moons ago was a "Trainee" under the International Agricultural Exchange Association on the Keilor Farm, Berwyn, Alberta, good friends of ours and an amazing testament to how small the world has become. Brendan is in a way my boss here in Victoria and we had a quick meeting to see how the Hosting Program was running.


Also during the week I caught up with immediate supervisor Steve Young and some of the staff involved with weed legislation compliance. The Central Goldfield Shire in Maryborough was the next stop visiting with Andrew Steed, a keen young lad organizing some new programs for the roadside weed and pest issues, not unlike what I do back in Alberta. Engaging the shires into taking a stronger lead role with road side weed and animal pest management is a new concept and cautiously accepted by the shire municipalities. Up to Bendigo to meet Kristy Roche to get a sense of how the department connects and engages with the ag. industry on weed and pest issues. This ties into the mentioning earlier in this blog on the Weed Free Hay Program.

From Bendigo I headed over into the beautiful Gippsland area of Victoria to meet John Balfour and his staff to assist with some Linear Reserves work, basically connecting with the land mangers of rail lines, quarries and state roads to monitor their compliance with the state weed and pest legislation. This visit also connected me with Gerry O'Keefe who put me up for the night on his Noojee property after a hearty meal an the local pub, the Outpost.













The return trip back from Gippsland took me across the Port Phillip Bay on the Sorrento Ferry instead of through the city of Melbourne, which is chaotic at the best of times. I wrapped up the week with a visit to a large private house yard with a fantastic garden area, which unfortunately also battled a small infestation of the state prohibited weed giant knot weed (Polygonum sachalinese), a very deep rooted and difficult to control perennial weed.


I have also been able to take a bit of time off and visit the absolutely stunning little island of Tasmania. I'll cover this in my next blog, to follow in a few days, promise!

Tour of Duty Benalla Incident Management Team

Top row is Gary McLarty my Field Team partner and then some photos from the field. Second row left is the Planning Team which I sat on and more specifically with the fancy officious title of Situations Officer. Now; the trees in the back are not in their Fall colors, they are burnt eucalyptus trees, which ordinarily remain green all year unless a fire scorches their leaves.

In my last blog I covered a bit of the February 7, 2009 Victoria Bush Fires, the largest natural disaster ever to hit Australia but I think it might be of interest to stay on that topic in this blog as well as I have become involved with the gigantic agricultural recovery program that commenced after the fires and in some cases while the fires were still burning.
I work ordinarily for the State Department of Primary Industries (DPI), Farm Services Section and the Landscape Protection Portfolio on weed and animal pest related programs. Consistently across the DPI state department, however, rests the responsibility for the Bush Fire Recovery Program to quickly assess the agricultural losses from fires and prepare assistance programs. The main scenarios are stock losses, stock gathering and confinement, veterinary assistance, fencing, crop losses, feed shortages, dwelling and farm building losses. This often is done in conjunction with the state department of Human Services and the local municipalities. Following this are the more long term rehabilitation issues such as soils erosion, revegetation, weeds and pest animals issues.

Bush Fires are a part of life in Australia and preparedness is well integrated into rural communities and state departments. The state department of Sustainability and the Environment is responsible for fire awareness, education and calculating the daily Fire Danger Index based on current temperature, humidity, drought factor, days since last rain coupled with weather forecast. The final calculation often triggers Total Fire Ban days during the summer (Dec-Mar), which was done ahead of the Feb. 7 fires, to warn people to prepare to activate their Fire Plan. The plan could as simple as evacuating when threatened by an approaching fire. It remains a choice to evacuate, but it is stated that the fire area may be cordoned off by police for safety reasons so access back in after evacuation may be restricted. The plan could also be more detailed and involve the setting up of fire fighting equipment on the property. Most fires start by embers that blow ahead of the fire front as the typical bush fires involves the very hot, strong and dry winds from central Australia and at times exacerbated by a sudden wind change late afternoon shifting winds from north to south west. On a Total Fire Ban day open fires, the use of welders, cutting torches, mowers etc. are also banned.

The local Country Fire Authority, which in the rural areas are totally voluntary, assist DSE with the actual fire fighting and goes into Stand By on Total Fire Ban days to, at moments notice, mobilize some amazing manpower and equipment. The actual management of the fire fighting and also the subsequent recovery aspect is done using a similar concept to what I have been exposed to in Clearwater County following floods and fires called the Incident Management System (ICS).

I am writing this from the Benalla Incident Management Team Complex, which under the ICS concept has a designated Incident Controller (the top gun!) and below this matrix the Planning sector looking after mapping, situations reports, information and resources; Operations look after the phone team, field teams, data entering; and Logistics look after accommodation, meals and safety.
Being part of such structure has been extremely enlightening and provided some valuable experiences. The Bush Fire Recovery IMT here at Benalla deals with the recovery aspect of the largest fire, the Murrindindi Kilmore fire that eventually succumbed to the efforts of firefighters and mother nature after consuming more than 500,000 acres. The team is comprised of 23 staff, but two weeks ago when the fire was still burning I assisted in the actual fire IMT and in contrast we had close to 800 people deployed. I have mainly been helping with the collecting of data for the printing of the daily Situation Report, which forms part of the daily Incident Action Plan but also, saw some field action yesterday conducting some farm visits collecting loss data.
State wide the impact are truly unprecedented and validates the declaration of this being the worst natural disaster to hit Australia. Over 1.1 million acres burnt; 210 lives lost (likely to climb slightly upon further forensic work); 1445 homes lost; 4,714 farms impacted (3461 assessed at this time); 2832 sheep lost, 1392 salvaged and 810 missing; and 1486 cattle lost, 1709 salvaged and 6,079 missing.

This is the State map showing where the fires were.

The landscape around where the bulk of the fires were is truly spectacular with massive eucalyptus treees that are named Mountain Ash (don't be confused, nothing to do with our North American Mountain Ash). The tree below, in the Yarra Ranges, was felled as part of the fire effort after the Black Saturday fires. Hollow trees like this close to the control line become chimneys. On fire inside, sparks funnel out the top of the tree and can fall across the other side of the fireline - re-igniting the fire. Still, a great shame to see it come down, it would have been very old.

The black spur area of Victoria was burnt during the fires. This is a picture of what the forrest looks like.

A few facts
Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest of all flowering plants, and possibly the tallest of all plants although no living specimens can make that claim. Tallest of the eucalypts, growing to 70-120 m (230-400 feet) with the tallest reported tree 152m.
It occurs in cool, deep soiled, mostly mountainous areas to 1000 m altitude with high rainfall of over 1200 mm per year. They grow very quickly, at more than a metre a year, and can reach 65 metres in 50 years, with an average life-span of 400 years.
Unusually for a eucalypt, it tends not to recover by re-shooting after fire, and regenerates only from seed. The seeds are released from their woody capsules (gumnuts) by heat and for successful germination the seedlings require a high level of light, much more than reaches the forest floor when there is a mature tree canopy. Severe fires can kill all the trees in a forest, prompting a massive release of seed to take advantage of the nutrients in the ash bed. Seedling densities of up to 2.5 million per hectare have been recorded after a major fire. Competition and natural thinning eventually reduces the mature tree density to about 30 to 40 individuals per hectare. Because it takes roughly 20 years for seedlings to reach sexual maturity, repeated fires in the same area can cause local extinctions. If, however, no fires regenerate an area, the trees die off after about 400 years and are replaced by other species.
The tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 99.6 metres tall in Tasmania. Before the discovery of the Centurion, the tallest known specimen was Icarus Dream, which was rediscovered in Tasmania in January, 2005 and is 97 meters high. It was first measured by surveyors at 98.8 metres in 1962 but the documentation had been lost. 16 living trees in Tasmania have been reliably measured in excess of 90 metreshttp://en.wikipedia.
Historically, the tallest individual is claimed to be the Ferguson Tree, at 132.6 metres, found in the Watts River region of Victoria in 1871 or 1872. This record is often disputed as unreliable, despite first-hand documentary evidence of it being measured on the ground with surveyor's tape by a senior forestry official (see below). Widespread agreement exists, however, that an exceptionally tall individual was reliably measured at 112.8 metres in 1880 by a surveyor, George Cornthwaite, at Thorpdale, Victoria (the tree is known both as the Cornthwaite or Thorpdale Tree). When it was felled in 1881, Cornthwaite remeasured it on the ground by chain at 114.3 metres. The stump was commemorated with an insignificant plaque that exists today. That tree was about 1 metre shorter than the world's current tallest living tree, a Coast Redwood, 115.55 metres.
The tallest specimens encountered by early European settlers are now dead as a result of bushfires, logging and advanced age. Few living specimens exceed 90 metres; old records of logged trees make varied claims of extreme heights, but these are difficult to verify today.

Close to doing some grape picking in a week or so at Henty Estates and on my way back tomorrow I'll slip up past the mighty Murray River, which forms the boundary to New South Wales. So that's what the next blog will feature.

Cheers mates!

March 1, a busy couple of weeks

Images from Marysville and Buxton

Well, its been busy the last three weeks but here comes an up-date. The February 7th bushfires proved to be much worse than stated in my last blog and will go down in history as the worst natural disaster to have hit Australia. I had an opportunity to tour some of the fire ravaged areas and see the Incident Management Teams (Bush Fire Recovery IMT as well as the actual Fire IMT) in action. The latter also took me into one of the hardest hit areas, the picturesque little town of Marysville, where only a couple of houses were not burned into the ground. This area is still cordoned off by police (but travelling with Tony Lovick, the supervisor for the DPI Bushfire

Recovery Team allowed us through the check point). The villages of Marysville and Buxton remain a crime scene as forensic work in determining the final count on lives lost and cause of the fire is still on-going. I have taken training and have had some minor involvement with the Incident Command System concept also used up in Clearwater County, i.e. following flood events but the Victorian Bush Fire Incident Command System is in a league of its own. 90 or so people

manned the Incident Command Centre (or the Incident Management Team as it is referred to here) of Alexandra, 2 hrs north of Melbourne in the various roles from Operations, Planning and Logistics. The actual fire fighting ground and air crews totalled another 700 and were housed in another area of the town, all dealing with the Killmore East-Murrandindi North fire, still burning three weeks after "Black Saturday", now covering 425,000 acres. I was put to work with the Situations Team under Planning, assisting with mapping of the fire situation and preparing Situations Reports twice every 24 hrs.

First priority is obviously the fire fighting but right away the recovery efforts kick in, and Bush Fire Recovery Teams assess people and property impacts. Just with the respect to the above Killmore Murrrandindi Fire (one of 4 IMT's operating in the state):

1412 farms/properties affected, 376,000 acres, 290 dwellings lost (nationally 1615) , 2,034 sheep, 2,337 beef, 815 dairy, 101,233 poultry, 1507 km of internal fencing, 1121 km road boundary fencing, 794 km private boundary fencing.

Tomorrow I may go to the East Gippsland area and take part in the Agricultural Bush Fire Recovery Program assessing the farm impact of this fire which impacted the area east of Melbourne about 200 km, high producing dairy and beef country in a higher rainfall area of Victoria. Fencing needs, feed needs, veterinary assistance are some of the initial requirements followed by the more long term issues such as weed and pest animal impacts, soils erosion, re-vegetation needs etc.

The Hamilton Beef/Sheep Expo happened a couple of weeks ago and I had the opportunity to help with a multi departmental display displaying environmental farm planning, feed testing and weeds. I spoke with a few exhibitors also and closely perused some of the neat machinery on display.

One of the beef exhibitors was Stephen Branson from Mortlake south of Hamilton who brought some of his bulls, select heifers and cows and in for show. Excellent cattle and they showed impressive traits for easy fleshing, length, depth and muscling. Some of the genetics are North American (the odd Leachman line) and he does have some semen available in Canada off of one of his bulls. Unfortunately I was unable to take him up on an invite to attend their up-coming bulls sale due to the fire situation. I'll try and connect with them later, very impressive cattle.

Prior to attending the fire IMT last week I spent a couple of days in Melbourne to take part in some inspections of private back yards in suburbs of the city for alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides), a state prohibited weed, which DPI weed staff is responsible for eradicating (similar to the other weed campaigns I have written about). The unique part of this exercise is the fact that the infestations were predominantly on properties owned by Sri Lankans who grew this plant in their gardens as a salad plant. The department launched an aggressive programs a few years back to offer folks a replacement plant useful for the same purpose and the inspections were intended to clean-up the data base or treat areas with alligator weed still present. It was quite shocking to see plants still growing in the parched lawns and old veggie patches, obviously extremely resilient as its main undesirable characteristic is being an aquatic plant, choking wetlands and ruining riparian habitats for fish, birds and other wildlife. The main treatment is with a simple glyphosate (Round-up) spray or occasionally if the site allows a treatment with metsulfuron (Ally or Escort). Michael Hansford, also with DPI, whose wife is actually Canadian made up the two-some.

I'll finish off with a fun time at Henty Estates (owned by Peter and Glennis Dixon) this weekend helping with the bottling of a remaining batch of their 2007 Shiraz. A mobile unit rolled in at 8 am Saturday and with a good group friends and family we bottled over 6,000 bottles in two hours.

Oh and I just about forgot. I came across a Tiger snake on my way home to Dunkeld and killed it with my bare hands, or was it dead already? Not sure but here is a photo up close of one of Victoria's venomous snakes. Sandals may not be the most appropriate PPE!

I have also attended a couple of excellent workshops, one on "Producing Effective Workshops and Field Days" and another on "Client Interaction and Defensive Tactics", a combo on how to avoid confrontation but if it happens how to defend yourself. (the snake should have known this!)
Cheers until next time. I'll try not to laps this long. Kim